Leigh Hunf s Writings.

THE SEER ; OR, COMMONPLACES REFRESHED. "Love adds a precious seeing to the eye." — Shake- speare. In two volumes. i6mo. Cloth, gilt top. Price, $3.00.

Contents of " The Seer"

Pleasure ; On a Pebble ; Spring ; Color ; Windows ; Windows, con- sidered from inside; A Flower for your Window ; A Word on Early Rising ; Breakfast in Summer ; Anac- reon ; The Wrong Sides of Scholar- ship and No Scholarship ; Cricket ; A Dusty Day ; Bricklayers, and An Old Book ; A Rainy Day ; The East Wind; Strawberries; The Waiter: The Butcher; A Pinch of Snuff; Wordsworth and Milton ; Specimens of Chaucer ; Peter Wilkins and the Flying Woman ; English and French Females ; English Male Costume ; English Women Vindicated ; Sunday in London ; Sunday in the Suburbs ; A Human Being and a Crowd ; The

Cat by the Fire ; Put up a Picture in your Room ; A Gentleman-Saint ; The Eve' of St. Agnes; A " Now," descriptive of a cold day ; Ice, with Poets upon it ; The Piano-forte ; Why Sweet Music produces Sadness ; Dancing and Dancers ; Twelfth Night ; Rules in Making Presents ; Romance of Commonplace ; Amiable- ness Superior to Common Intellect ; Life After Death, — Belief in Spirits ; On Death and Burial ; On Washer- women ; The Nightmare ; The Flor- entine Lovers ; Rhyme and Reason ; Vicissitudes of a Lecture ; The For- tunes of Genius; Poets' Houses; A Journey by Coach ; Inexhaustibility of the Subject of Christmas. "

" ' The Seer ' is a capital companion in the traveller's pocket, and by the bachelor's coffee-cup, and whenever one wishes a nibble at the good things of the library at home. No one can behold the face of Nature without finding a smile upon it, if he looks there through the eyes of 'The Seer.' " — Boston Daily A dvertiser.

"A collection of delicious essays, thoroughly imbued with the characteristics of the writer's genius and manner, and on topics especially calculated to bring out all the charms of his genial spirit and develop all the niceties of his fluent diction, and worthy of being domesticated among those choice family books which while away leisure hours with agreeable thoughts and fancies." — E. P.

" ' The Seer ' is one of the best specimens of the modern essayist's dealing with the minor pleasures and domestic philosophy of life, and is a capital anti- dote for the too exciting books of the hour ; it lures us to musing, and what Hazlitt calls 'reposing on our sensations." " — H. T. Tuckerinan.

Sold everywhere. Mailed, postpaid, by the Publishers.

ROBERTS BROTHERS,

Boston.

Leigh Hunt ' s Writings.

THE BOOK OF THE SONNET. Compris- ing an Essay on the Cultivation, History, and Varieties of the species of poem called the Sonnet, with a Selec- tion of English Sonnets, now first published from the original MSS. of Leigh Hunt. An Essay on American Sonnets and Sonneteers, with a Selection of Sonnets, by S. Adams Lee. In two volumes. i6mo. Cloth, gilt top. Price, $3.00.

" The genuine aroma of literature abounds in every page of Leigh Hunt's delicious Essay on the Sonnet. His mind shows itself imbued with a rich knowledge of his subject, and this, illumined by the evidence of H thorough and unaffected liking for it, makes him irresistible." — London Saturday Review.

"As a collection of Sonnets, it is pot only the fullest ever made, but by far the best, even excelling the dainty little collection by Dyce, . . . and Hunt's exhaustive and every way admirable introductory essay is, after all, much the best part of the work. Its pages are steeped in thoughtful scholarship on this special theme, and sparkle with genial and veracious criticism." — R. H. Stod- dard.

"A greater verbal epicurean than Leigh Hunt never lived. He luxuriated over niceties of expression and revelled in a delicious image or apt phrases ; he was always seeking the beautiful in neglected fields of literature ; and to renew his acquaintance with the memorable sonnets of Italian and English poets was simply a labor of love. He therefore wrote an essay giving the history of the sonnet, and defining its conditions and possibilities, expatiated on the special merits of each renowned writer in this sphere, and indicated the most striking examples of success in artistic and effective construction or eloquent feeling as thus embodied and expressed." — H. T. Tuckennan.

" Whether Leigh Hunt was a man of genius, or only of surpassing talent, is a question which we willingly leave to the critics who find tweedledee differ- ent from tweedledum in kind as well as degree. We are content with the fact that he has some virtue which makes us read every book of his we open, and which leaves us more his friend at the end than we were before. Indeed, it would be hard not to love so cheerful and kindly a soul, even if his art were ever less than charming. But literature seems to have always been a gay sci- ence with him. We never see his Muse as the harsh step-mother she really was : we are made to think her a gentle liege-lady, served in the airiest spirit of chivalric devotion ; and in the Essay in this ' Book of the Sonnet ' her aspect is as sunny as any the poet has ever shown us.

" The Essay is printed for the first time, and it was written in Hunt's old age ; but it is full of light-heartedness, and belongs in feeling to a period at least as early as that which produced the ' Stories from the Italian Poets.' It is one of those studies in which he was always happy, for it keeps him chiefly in Italy ; and when it takes him from Italy, it only brings him into the Italian air of English sonnetry, — a sort of soft Devonshire coast, bordering the rug- geder native poetry on the south."— W. D. Howells, in Atlantic Monthly.

Sold everywhere. Mailed, postpaid, by the Publishers.

ROBERTS BROTHERS,

Boston.

DAY BY THE FIRE.

DAY BY THE FIRE;

©fljer papers,

HITHERTO UNCOLLECTED.

BY

LEIGH HUNT.

Matchless as a fireside companion." — ELIA.

BOSTON: OBERTS BROTHERS.

1870.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by

ROBERTS BROTHERS,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the District of Massachusetts.

CAMBRIDGE I PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.

PREFATORY NOTE.

HE papers here first collected were originally published in "The Reflector," "The Ex- aminer," "The Indicator,"* "The London Journal," "The Monthly Chronicle," and " The New Monthly Magazine ; " and were written at widely different periods of the author's life — in his early manhood, middle life, and old age.

If there is any intelligent person who professes not to like Leigh Hunt, it is probably for precisely the same rea- son that Charles Lamb professed not to like the W s,

— because he did not know them. For Leigh Hunt is one of the most delightful of authors, and all who read him admire him for his scholarly tastes and literary amenities, his nimble wit, bright fancy, and subtle perception of beauty ; and love him for his glad heart and sunny dis- position, his large and generous sympathies, and noble, Christian faith in the innate goodness of man.

This volume of essays and sketches, — written in the author's pleasant, characteristic manner, and full of what Hawthorne happily calls "his unmeasured poetry," — will, I hope, be acceptable to the old admirers of Leigh Hunt, and introduce him to many new and appreciative readers.

J. E. B.

CHELSEA, November 18, 1869.

* The little weekly periodical, from which the well-known delightful work of the same name is a selection.

Something not to be replaced would be struck out of the gentler literature of our century, could the mind of Leigh Hunt cease to speak to us in a book. EDWARD BULWER, LORD LYTTON.

Into whatever he has written he has put a living soul ; and much of what he has produced is brilliant either with wit and humor, or with tenderness and beauty. GEORGE L. CRAIK.

Leigh Hunt seems the very opposite of Hazlitt He loves everything, he catches the sunny side of everything, and, excepting that he has a few polemical antipathies, finds everything beautiful.

HENRY CRABB ROBINSON.

He is, in truth, one of the pleasantest writers of his time, — easy, colloquial, genial, human, full of fine fancies and verbal niceties, possessing a loving if not a " learned spirit," with hardly a spice of bitterness in his composition.

E. P. WHIPPLE.

I have been reading some of Leigh Hunt's works lately, and am surprised at the freshness, and sweetness, and Christian, not lax, spirit of human benev- olence and toleration which existed in the heart of one who was the contempo- rary, and even colleague, of Byron.

FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON.

CONTENTS.

Prefatory Note 3

A Day by the Fire . . 13

On Commonplace People 42

A Popular View of the Heathen Mythology ... 47 On the Genii of the Greeks and Romans, and the

Spirit that was said to have waited on Socrates . 59

On the Genii of Antiquity and the Poets 70

Fairies Si

Genii and Fairies of the East, the Arabian Nights, &c. 124

The Satyr of Mythology and the Poets 155

The Nymphs of Antiquity and of the Poets .... 170

The Sirens and Mermaids of the Poets 188

Tritons and Men of the Sea 206

On Giants, Ogres, and Cyclops 231

Gog and Magog, and the Wall of Dhoulkarnein . . 252

Aeronautics, Real and Fabulous 260

On the Talking of Nonsense 284

A Rainy Day 292

The True Enjoyment of Splendor 299

12 CONTENTS.

Retrospective Review — Men Wedded to Books — The

Contest between the Nightingale and Musician . 302

The Murdered Pump 315

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 319

New Year's Gifts 326

Sale of the late Mr. West's Pictures 331

Translation from Milton into Welsh 334

The Bull-Fight; or, The Story of Don Alphonso de

Melos and the Jeweller's Daughter 343

Love and Will 353

A DAY BY THE FIRE.

AM one of those that delight in a fireside, and can enjoy it without even the help of a cat or a tea-kettle. To cats, indeed, I have an aver- sion, as animals that only affect a sociality, without caring a jot for any thing but their own luxury ; * and my tea-kettle, I frankly confess, has long been displaced, or rather dismissed, by a bronze-col- ored and graceful urn ; though, between ourselves, I am not sure that I have gained any thing by the exchange. Cowper, it is true, talks of the " bubbling and loud-hissing urn," which —

" Throws up a steamy column ; "

but there was something so primitive and unaffected, so warm-hearted and unpresuming, in the tea-kettle, — its song was so much more cheerful and continued, and it kept the water so hot and comfortable as long as you wanted it, — that I sometimes feel as if I had sent off a good, plain, faithful old friend, who had but one wish to serve me, for a superficial, smooth-faced upstart of a fel- low, who, after a little promising and vaporing, grows cold

* This was written in the early days of Leigh Hunt's literary career; but years after, when he was older and wiser, he did full and complete justice to the familiar household cat, in an admirable paper, entitled, "The Cat by the Fire," published in "The Seer." — ED.

14 A DAY BY THE FIRE.

and contemptuous, and thinks himself bound to do noth- ing but stand on a rug and have his person admired by the circle. To this admiration, in fact, I have been obliged to resort, in order to make myself think well of my bargain, if possible ; and, accordingly, I say to myself every now and then during the tea, " A pretty look with it, — that urn ; " or, " It's wonderful what a taste the Greeks had ; " or, " The eye might have a great many enjoyments, if peo- ple would but look after forms and shapes." In the mean while, the urn leaves off its "bubbling and hissing," — but then there is such an air with it ! My tea is made of cold water, — but then, the Greeks were such a nation !

If there is any one thing that can reconcile me to the loss of my kettle, more than another, it is that my fire has been left to itself: it has full room to breathe and to blaze, and I can poke it as I please. What recollections does that idea excite ? — Poke it as I please ! Think, benevo- lent reader, — think of the pride and pleasure of having in your hand that awful, but at the same time artless, weapon, a poker, — of putting it into the proper bar, gently levering up the coals, and seeing the instant and bustling flame above ! * To what can I compare that moment ? that sudden, empyreal enthusiasm ? that fiery expression of vivification ? that ardent acknowledgment, as it were,, of the care and kindliness of the operator ? Let me con- sider a moment : it is very odd ; I was always reckoned a lively hand at a simile ; but language and combination absolutely fail me here. If it is like any tiling, it must be something beyond every thing in beauty and life. Oh, I have it now : think, reader, if you are one of those who

* Charles Lamb's friend and school-mate, Le Grice, wrote a book on the " Art of Poking the Fire." — ED.

A DAY BY THE FIRE. 15

can muster up sufficient sprightliness to engage in a game of forfeits, — on Twelfth night, for instance, — think of a blooming girl who is condemned to "open her mouth and shut her eyes, and see what heaven," in the shape of a mischievous young fellow, " will send her." Her mouth is opened accordingly, the fire of her eyes is dead, her face assumes a doleful air ; up walks the aforesaid heaven or mischievous young fellow (young Ouranos, Hesiod would have called him), and, instead of a piece of paper, a thimble, or a cinder, claps into her mouth a peg of orange or a long slice of citron ; then her eyes above instantly light up again, the smiles wreath about, the sparklings burst forth, and all is warmth, brilliancy, and delight. I am aware that this simile is not perfect ; but if it would do for an epic poem, as I think it might, after Virgil's whipping-tops and Homer's jackasses and black-pud- dings, the reader, perhaps, will not quarrel with it.

But to describe my feelings in an orderly manner, I must request the reader to go with me through a day's enjoyments by the fireside. It is part of my business to look about for helps to reflection ; and, for this reason, among many others, I indulge myself in keeping a good fire from morning till night. I have also a reflective turn for an easy chair, and a very thinking attachment to com- fort in general. But of this as I proceed. Imprimis, then : the morning is clear and cold ; time, half-past sev- en ; scene, a breakfast-room. Some persons, by the by, prefer a thick and rainy morning, with a sobbing wind, and the clatter of pattens along the streets ; but I confess, for my own part, that being a sedentary person, and too apt to sin against the duties of exercise, I have somewhat too sensitive a consciousness of bad weather, and feel a heavy sky go over me like a feather-bed, or rather like a

1 6 A DAY BY THE FIRE.

huge brush which rubs all my nap the wrong way. I am growing better in this respect, and, by the help of a stout walk at noon, and getting, as it were, fairly into a favorite poet and a warm fire of an evening, begin to manage a cloud or an east wind tolerably well ; but still, for perfec- tion's sake on the present occasion, I must insist upon my clear morning, and will add to it, if the reader pleases, a little hoar-frost upon the windows, a bird or two coming after the crumbs, and the light smoke from the neighboring chimneys brightening up into the early sunshine. £ven the dustman's bell is not unpleasant from its association ; and there is something absolutely musical in the clash of the milk-pails suddenly unyoked, and the ineffable, ad libi- tum note that follows.

The waking epicure rises with an elastic anticipation ; enjoys the freshening cold water which endears what is to come ; and even goes placidly through the villanous scrap- ing process which we soften down into the level and lawny appellation of shaving. He then hurries down stairs, rubbing his hands, and sawing the sharp air through his teeth ; and, as he enters the breakfast-room, sees his old companion glowing through the bars, the life of the apart- ment, and wanting only his friendly hand to be lightened a little, and enabled to shoot up into dancing brilliancy. (I find I am getting into a quantity of epithets here, and must rein in my enthusiasm.) What need I say? The poker is applied, and would be so whether required or not, for it is impossible to resist the sudden ardor inspired by that sight ? The use of the poker, on first seeing one's hre, is as natural as shaking hands with a friend. At that movement a hundred little sparkles fly up from the coal- dust that falls within, while from the masses themselves, a roaring flame mounts aloft with a deep and fitful sound as

A DAY BY THE FIRE. 1 7

of a shaken carpet, — epithets again ; I must recur to poetry at once : —

Then shine the bars, the cakes in smoke aspire,

A sudden glory bursts from all the fire.

The conscious wight, rejoicing in the heat,

Rubs the blithe knees, and toasts th' alternate feet.*

The utility, as well as beauty, of the fire during breakfast, need not be pointed out to the most unphlogistic observer. A person would rather be shivering at any time of the day than at that of his first rising ; the transition would be too unnatural, — he is not prepared for it, as Barnardine says, when he objects to being hanged. If you eat plain bread and butter with your tea, it is fit that your moderation should be rewarded with a good blaze ; and if you indulge in hot rolls or toast, you will hardly keep them to their warmth without it, particularly if you read ; and then, if you take in a newspaper, what a delightful change from the wet, raw, dabbing fold of paper when you first touch it, to the dry, crackling, crisp superficies which, with a skilful spat of the finger-nails at its upper end, stands at once in your hand, and looks as if it said, " Come read me." Nor is it the look of the newspaper only which the fire must render complete : it is the interest of the ladies who may happen to form part of your family, — of your wife in particular, if you have one, — to avoid the niggling and pinching aspect of cold ; it takes away the harmony of her features, and the graces of her behavior ; while, on the other hand, there is scarcely a more interesting sight in the world than that of a neat, delicate, good-humored

* Parody upon part of the well-known description of night, with which Pope has swelled out the passage in Homer, and the faults of which have long been appreciated by general readers.

2

i A DAY BY THE FIRE.

female presiding at your breakfast-table, with hands taper- ing out of her long sleeves, eyes with a touch of Sir Peter Lely in them, and a face set in a little oval frame of mus- lin tied under the chin, and retaining a certain tinge of the pillow without its cloudiness. This is, indeed, the finish- ing grace of a fireside, though it is impossible to have it at all times, and perhaps not always politic, — especially for the studious.

From breakfast to dinner, the quantity and quality of enjoyment depend very much on the nature of one's con- cerns ; and occupation of any kind, if we pursue it prop- erly, will hinder us from paying a critical attention to the fireside. It is sufficient, if our employments do not take us away from it, or at least from the genial warmth of a room which it adorns, — unless, indeed, we are enabled to have recourse to exercise ; and in that case, I am not so unjust as to deny that walking or riding has its merits, and that the general glow they diffuse throughout the frame has something in it so extremely pleasurable and encour- aging ; nay, I must not scruple to confess that, without some preparation of this kind, the enjoyment of the fire- side, humanly speaking, is not absolutely perfect, as I have latterly been convinced by a variety of incontestable argu- ments in the shape of headaches, rheumatisms, mote-haunt- ed eyes, and other logical appeals to one's feelings which are in great use with physicians. Supposing, therefore, the morning to be passed, and the due portion of exercise to have been taken, the firesider fixes rather an early hour for dinner, particularly in the winter-time ; for he has not only been early at breakfast, but there are two luxurious intervals to enjoy between dinner and the time of candles : one that supposes a party round the fire with their wine and fruit ; the other, the hour of twilight, of which it has

A DAY BY THE FIRE. 19

been reasonably doubted whether it is not the most luxu- rious point of time which a fireside can present ; but opin- ions will naturally be divided on this as on all other subjects, and every degree of pleasure depends upon so many contingencies, and upon such a variety of associa- tions, induced by habit and opinion, that I should be as unwilling as I am unable to decide on the matter. This, however, is certain, that no true firesider can dislike an hour so composing to his thoughts, and so cherishing to his whole faculties ; and it is equally certain that he will be little inclined to protract the dinner beyond what he can help, for if ever a fireside becomes unpleas- ant, it is during that gross and pernicious prolongation of eating and drinking, to which this latter age has given itself up, and which threatens to make the rising genera- tion regard a meal of repletion as the ultimatum of enjoy- ment.

The inconvenience to which I allude is owing to the way in which we sit at dinner, for the persons who have their backs to the fire are liable to be scorched, while, at the same time, they render the persons opposite them liable to be frozen : so that the fire becomes uncomfortable to the former, and tantalizing to the latter ; and thus three evils are produced, of a most absurd and scandalous na- ture : in the first place, the fireside loses a degree of its character, and awakens feelings the very reverse of what it should ; secondly, the position of the back towards it is a neglect and affront, which it becomes it to resent ; and finally, its beauties, its proffered kindness, and its sprightly social effect are at once cut off from the company by the interposition of those invidious and idle surfaces called screens. This abuse is the more ridiculous, inasmuch as the remedy is so easy : for we have nothing to do but to

20 A DAY BY THE FIRE.

use semicircular dining-tables, with the base unoccupied towards the fireplace, and the whole annoyance vanishes at once ; the master or mistress might preside in the middle, as was the custom with the Romans, and thus propriety would be observed, while everybody had the sight and benefit of the fire ; not to mention that, by this fashion, the table might be brought nearer to it, that the servants would have better access to the dishes, and that screens, if at all necessary, might be turned to better purpose as a general enclosure instead of a separation.

But I hasten from dinner, according to notice ; and can- not but observe that, if you have a small set of visitors who enter into your feelings on this head, there is no movement so pleasant as a general one from the table to the fireside, each person taking his glass with him, and a small, slim-legged table being introduced into the circle for the purpose of holding the wine, and perhaps a poet or two, a glee-book, or a lute. If this practice should be- come general among those who know how to enjoy luxur- ies in such temperance as not to destroy conversation, it would soon gain for us another social advantage, by put- ting an end to the barbarous custom of sending away the ladies after dinner, — a gross violation of those chivalrous graces of life, for which modern times are so highly in- debted to the persons whom they are pleased to term Gothic. And here I might digress, with no great impro- priety, to show the snug notions that were entertained by the knights and damsels of old in all particulars relating to domestic enjoyment, especially in the article of mixed company ; but I must not quit the fireside, and will only observe that, as the ladies formed its chief ornament, so they constituted its most familiar delight.

A DAY BY THE FIRE. 21

" The minstralcie, the service at the feste, The grete yeftes to the most and leste, The riche array of Theseus' paleis, Ne who sate first, ne last upon the deis, What ladies fairest ben, or best dancing, Or which of hem can carole best or sing, Ne who most felingly speketh of love ; What haukis sitten on the perch above, What houndis liggen on the flour adoun, — Of all this now make I no mencioun."

CHAUCER.

The word snug, however, reminds me that amidst all the languages, ancient and modern, it belongs exclusively to our own ; and that nothing but a want of ideas sug- gested by that soul-wrapping epithet could have induced certain frigid connoisseurs to tax our climate with want of genius, — supposing, forsooth, that because we have not the sunshine of the Southern countries, we have no other warmth for our veins, and that, because our skies are not hot enough to keep us in doors, we have no excursiveness of wit and range of imagination. It seems to me that a great deal of good argument in refutation of these calum- nies has been wasted upon Monsieur du Bos and the Herr Winckelman : the one a narrow-minded, pedantic French- man, to whom the freedom of our genius was incompre- hensible ; the other, an Italianized German, who being suddenly transported into the sunshine, began frisking about with unwieldy vivacity, and concluded that nobody could be great or bewitching out of the pale of his advan- tages. Milton, it is true, in his "Paradise Lost," ex- presses an injudicious apprehension lest —

" An age too late, or cold Climate, or years, damp his intended wing ; "

but the very complaint which foreign critics bring against him, as well as Shakespeare, is that his wing was not

22 A DAY BY THE FIRE.

damped enough, — that it was too daring and unsubdued ; and he not only avenges himself nobly of his fears by a flight beyond all Italian poetry, but shows, like the rest of his countrymen, that he could turn the coldness of his climate into a new species of inspiration, as I shall pres- ently make manifest. Not to mention, however, that the Greeks and Romans, Homer in particular, saw a great deal worse weather than these critics would have us imag- ine ; the question is, would the poets themselves have thought as they did? Would Tyrtaeusr the singer of patriotism, have complained of being an Englishman ? Would Virgil, who delighted in husbandry, and whose first wish was to be a philosopher, have complained of living in our pastures, and being the countryman of New- ton ? Would Homer, the observer of character, the pan- egyrist of freedom, the painter of storms, of landscapes, and of domestic tenderness, — aye, and the lover of snug house-room and a good dinner, — would he have com- plained of our humors, of our liberty, of our shifting skies, of our ever-green fields, our conjugal happiness, our firesides, and our hospitality ? I only wish the reader and I had him at this party of ours after dinner, with a lyre on his knee, and a goblet, as he says, to drink as he pleased, —

—— "Piein, hote thumos anogoi."

ODYSS. lib. viii. v. 70.

I am much mistaken if our blazing fire and our freedom of speech would not give him a warmer inspiration than ever he felt in the person of Demodocus, even though placed on a lofty seat, and regaled with slices of brawn from a prince's table. The ancients, in fact, were by no means deficient in enthusiasm at sight of a good fire ; and it is to be presumed that, if they had enjoyed such firesides

A DAY BY THE FIRE. 23

as ours, they would have acknowledged the advantages which our genius presents in winter, and almost been ready to conclude, with old Cleveland, that the sun him- self was nothing but —

" Heaven's coalery ; — A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame."

The ancient hearth was generally in the middle of the room, the ceiling of which let out the smoke ; it was sup- plied with charcoal or faggpts, and consisted sometimes of a brazier or chafing-dish (the focus of the Romans), sometimes of a mere elevation or altar (the laria. or £a%apa of the Greeks). We may easily imagine the smoke and annoyance which this custom must have occasioned, — not to mention the bad complexions which are caught by hanging over a fuming-pan, as the faces of the Spanish la- dies bear melancholy witness. The stoves, however, in use with the countrymen of Mons. du Bos and Winckelman are, if possible, still worse, having a dull, suffocating ef- fect, with nothing to recompense the eye. The abhorrence of them which Ariosto expresses in one of his satires, when, justifying his refusal to accompany Cardinal d'Este into Germany, he reckons up the miseries of its winter- time, may have led M. Winckelman to conclude that all the Northern resources against cold were equally intolera- ble to an Italian genius ; but Count Alfieri, a poet, at least as warmly inclined as Ariosto, delighted in England ; and the great romancer himself, in another of his satires, makes a commodious fireplace the climax of his wishes with regard to lodging. In short, what did Horace say, or rather what did he not say, of the raptures of in-door sociality, — Horace, who knew how to enjoy sunshine in all its luxury, and who nevertheless appears to have snatched a finer inspiration from absolute frost and snow ?

24 A DAY BY THE FIRE.

I need not quote all those beautiful little invitations he sent to his acquaintances, telling one of them that a neat room and a sparkling fire were waiting for him ; describ- ing to another the smoke springing out of the roof in curling volumes, and even congratulating his friends in general on the opportunity of enjoyment afforded them by a stormy day ; but, to take leave at once of these frigid connoisseurs, hear with what rapture he describes one of those friendly parties, in which he passed his winter even- ings, and which only wanted the finish of our better mor- ality and our patent fireplaces, to resemble the one I am now fancying.

" Vides, ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte, nee jam sustineant onus Silvas laborantes, geluque Flumina constiterint acuto :

Dissolve frigus ligna super foco Large reponens, atque benignius Deprome quadrimum SabinS, O Thaliarche, merura diotd.

Permitte Divis caetera ; . .

Donee virenti canities abest Morosa. Nunc et campus, et area, Lenesque sub noctem susurri Composite repetantur hora ;

Nunc et latentis proditor intimo Gratus puellae risus ab angulo, Pignusque dereptum lacertis Aut digito male pertinaci."

LIB. I. OD. 9.

Behold yon mountain's hoary height Made higher with new mounts of snow ;

Again behold the winter's weight Oppress the lab'ring woods below,

A DAY BY THE FIRE. 25

And streams with icy fetters bound Benumb'd and crampt to solid ground.

With well-heap'd logs dissolve the cold,

And feed the genial hearth with fires, Produce the wine that makes us bold,

And sprightly wit and mirth inspires. For what hereafter shall betide, Jove, if 'tis worth his care, provide.

Th' appointed hour of promis'd bliss,

The pleasing whisper in the dark, The half unwilling, willing kiss,

The laugh that guides thee to the mark, When the kind nymph would coyness feign, And hides but to be found again, These, these are joys the gods for youth ordain."

DRY DEN.

The Roman poet, however, though he occasionally boasts of his temperance, is too apt to lose sight of the intellectual part of his entertainment, or at least to make the sensual part predominate over the intellectual. Now, I reckon the nicety of social enjoyment to consist in the reverse; and, after partaking with Homer of his plenti- ful boiled and roast, and with Horace of his flower- crowned wine-parties, the poetical reader must come at last to us barbarians of the North for the perfection of fireside festivity, — that is to say, for the union of practi- cal philosophy with. absolute merriment, — for light meals and unintoxicating glasses ; for refection that administers to enjoyment, instead of repletions that at once constitute and contradict it. I am speaking, of course, not of our commonplace eaters and drinkers, but of our classical arbiters of pleasure, as contrasted with those of other countries ; these, it is observable, have all delighted in Horace, and copied him as far as their tastes were con-

26 A DAY BY THE FIRE.

genial ; but, without relaxing a jot of their real comfort, how pleasingly does their native philosophy temper and adorn the freedom of their conviviality, — feeding the fire, as it were, with an equable fuel that hinders it alike from scorching and from going out, and, instead of the artificial enthusiasm of a heated body, enabling them to enjoy the healthful and unclouded predominance of a sparkling in- telligence ! It is curious, indeed, to see how distinct from all excess are their freest and heartiest notions of relaxa- tion. Thus our old poet, Drayton, reminding 'his favorite companion of a fireside meeting, expressly unites freedom with moderation : —

" My dearly loved friend, how oft have we In winter evenings, meaning to be free, To some well-chosen place us'd to retire, And there with moderate meat, and wine, and fire, Have pass'd the hours contentedly in chat, Now talk'd of this, and then discours'd of that, — Spoke our own verses 'twixt ourselves, — if not Other men's lines, which we by chance had got." EPISTLE TO HENRY REYNOLDS, ESQ., of Poets and Poeij.

And Milton, in his " Sonnet to Cyriack Skinner," one of the turns of which is plainly imitated from Horace, par- ticularly qualifies a strong invitation to merriment by an- ticipating what Horace would always drive from your reflections, — the feelings of the day after : —

" Cyriack, whose Grandsire, on the royaf bench

Of British Themis, with no mean applause

Pronounc'd, and in his volumes taught, our laws, Which others at their bar so often wrench ; To-day deep thoughts -resolve ivith me to drench

In mirth, that, after, no repenting draws.

Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause, And what the Swede intends, and what the French To measure life learn thou betimes, and know

Tow'rd solid good what leads the nearest way *

A DAY BY THE FIRE. 27

For other things mild Heav'n a time ordains, And disapproves that care, though wise in show, That with superfluous burden loads the day, And when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains."

But the execution of this sonnet is not to be compared in gracefulness and a finished sociality with the one addressed to his friend Lawrence, which, as it presents us with the acme of elegant repast, may conclude the hour which I have just been describing, and conduct us complacently to our twilight, —

" Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,

Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire,

Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire Help waste a sullen day, —what may be won From the hard season gaining? Time will run

On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire

The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire The lily and rose, that neither sow'd nor spun. What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,

Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise To hear the lute well-touch'd, and artful voice

Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?

He who of these delights can judge, and spare To interpose them oft, is not unwise."

But twilight comes : and the lover of the fireside, for the perfection of the moment, is now alone. He was reading a minute or two ago, and for some time was un- conscious of the increasing dusk, till, on looking up, he perceived the objects out of doors deepening into massy outline, while the sides of his fireplace began to reflect the light of the flames, and the shadow of himself and his chair fidgeted with huge obscurity on the wall. Still wish- ing to read, he pushed himself nearer and nearer the win- dow, and continued fixing on his book till he happened to take another glance out of doors, and on returning to it, could make out nothing. He therefore lays it aside, and

28 A DAY BY THE FIRE.

restoring his chair to the fireplace, seats himself right before it in a reclining posture, his feet apart upon the fender, his eyes bent down towards the grate, his arms on the chair's elbows, one hand hanging down, and the palm of the other turned up and presented to the fire, — not to keep it from him, for there is no glare or scorch about it, but to intercept and have a more kindly feel of its genial warmth. It is thus that the greatest and wisest of mankind have sat and meditated ; a homely truism, per- haps, but such a one as we are apt enough to forget. We talk of going to Athens or to Rome to see the precise ob- jects which the Greeks and Romans beheld ; and forget that the moon, which may be looking upon us at the mo- ment, is the same identical planet that enchanted Homer and Virgil, and that has been contemplated and admired by all the great men and geniuses that have existed : by Socrates and Plato in Athens, by the Antonines in Rome, by the Alfreds, the 1'Hospitals, the Miltons, Newtons, and Shakespeares. In like manner, we are anxious to dis- cover how these great men and poets appeared in com- mon, what habits they loved, in what way they talked and meditated, nay, in what postures they delighted to sit, and whether they indulged in the same tricks and little com- forts that we do. Look at nature and their works, and we shall see that they did ; and that, when we act naturally and think earnestly, we are reflecting their commonest habits to the life. Thus we have seen Horace talking of his blazing hearth and snug accommodations like the jol- liest of our acquaintances ; and thus we may safely imag- ine that Milton was in some such attitude as I have described, when he sketched that enchanting little picture which beats all the cabinet portraits that have been pro- duced, —

A DAY BY THE FIRE. 29

" Or if the air will not permit, Some still removed place will fit, Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom, Far from all resort of mirth, Save the cricket on the hearth, Or the bellman's drowsy charm To bless the doors from nightly harm."

But to attend to our fireside. The evening is beginning to gather in. The window, which presents a large face of watery gray, intersected by strong lines, is imperceptibly becoming darker; and as that becomes darker, the fire assumes a more glowing presence. The contemplatist keeps his easy posture, absorbed in his fancies ; and every thing around him is still and serene. The stillness would even ferment in his ear, and whisper, as it were, of what the air contained ; but a minute coil, just sufficient to hin- der that busier silence, clicks in the baking coal, while every now and then the light ashes shed themselves be- low, or a stronger, but still a gentle, flame flutters up with a gleam over the chimney. At length, the darker objects in the room mingle ; the gleam of the fire streaks with a rest- less light the edges of the furniture, and reflects itself in the blackening window ; while his feet take a gentle move on the fender, and then settle again, and his face comes out of the general darkness, earnest even in indolence, and pale in the very ruddiness of what it looks upon. This is the only time, perhaps, at which sheer idleness is salutary and refreshing. How observed with the smallest effort is every trick and aspect of the fire ! A coal foiling in, a fluttering flame, a miniature mockery of a flash of lightning, — nothing escapes the eye and the imagination. Sometimes a little flame appears at the corner of the grate like a quivering spangle; sometimes it swells out at top

3O A DAY BY THE FIRE.

into a restless and brief lambency ; anon it is seen only by a light beneath the grate, or it curls around one of the bars like a tongue, or darts out with a spiral thinness and a sulphurous and continued puffing as from a reed. The glowing coals meantime exhibit the shifting forms of hills and vales and gulfs, — of fiery Alps, whose heat is unin- habitable even by spirit, or of black precipices, from which swart fairies seem about to spring away on sable wings ; then heat and fire are forgotten, and walled towns appear, and figures of unknown animals, and far-distant countries scarcely to be reached by human journey ; then coaches and camels, and barking dogs as large as either, and forms that combine every shape and suggest every fancy, till at last, the ragged coals tumbling together, reduce the vision to chaos, and the huge profile of a gaunt and grinning face seems to make a jest of all that has passed.

During these creations of the eye, the thought roves about into a hundred abstractions, some of them sug- gested by the fire, some of them suggested by that sugges- tion, some of them arising from the general sensation of comfort and composure, contrasted with whatever the world affords of evil, or dignified by high wrought medita- tion on whatsoever gives hope to benevolence and inspira- tion to wisdom. The philosopher at such moments plans his Utopian schemes, and dreams of happy certainties which he cannot prove ; the lover, happier and more cer- tain, fancies his mistress with him, unobserved and confid- ing, his arm round her waist, her head upon his shoulder, and earth and heaven contained in that sweet possession ; the poet, thoughtful as the one, and ardent as the other, springs off at once above the world, treads every turn of the harmonious spheres, darts up with gleaming wings through the sunshine of a thousand systems, and stops

A DAY BY THE FIRE. 31

not till he has found a perfect paradise, whose fields are of young roses, and whose air is music, whose waters are the liquid diamond, whose light is as radiance through crystal, whose dwellings are laurel bowers, whose language is poetry, whose inhabitants are congenial souls, and to enter the very verge of whose atmosphere strikes beauty on the face, and felicity on the heart. Alas, that flights so lofty should ever be connected with earth by threads as slender as they are long, and that the least twitch of the most commonplace hand should be able to snatch down the viewless wanderer to existing comforts ! The entrance of a single candle dissipates at once the twilight and the sunshine, and the ambitious dreamer is summoned to his tea!

" Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in."

Never was snug hour more feelingly commenced ! Cow- per was not a great poet ; his range was neither wide nor lofty ; but such as it was, he had it completely to himself, — he is the poet of quiet life and familiar observation. The fire, we see, is now stirred, and becomes very differ- ent from the one we have just left ; it puts on its liveliest aspect in order to welcome those to whom the tea-table is a point of meeting, and it is the business of the firesider to cherish this aspect for the remainder of the evening. How light and easy the coals look ! How ardent is the roominess within the bars ! How airily do the volumes of smoke course each other up the chimney, like so many fantastic and indefinite spirits, while the eye in vain en-

32 A DAY BY THE FIRE.

deavors to accompany any one of them ! The flames are not so fierce as in the morning, but still they are active and powerful ; and if they do not roar up the chimney, they make a constant and playful noise, that is extremely to the purpose. Here they come out at top with a leafy swirl; there they dart -up spirally and at once'; there they form a lambent assemblage that shifts about on its own ground, and is continually losing and regaining its vanishing members. I confess I take particular delight in seeing a good blaze at top ; and my impatience to pro- duce it will sometimes lead me into great rashness in the article of poking ; that is to say, I use the poker at the top instead of the middle of the fire, and go probing it about in search of a flame. A lady of my acquaintance, — " near and dear," as they say in Parliament, — will tell me of this fault twenty times in a day, and every time so good-humoredly that it is mere want of generosity in me not to amend it ; but somehow or other I do not. The consequence is that, after a momentary ebullition of blaze, the fire becomes dark and sleepy, and is in danger of go- ing out. It is like a boy at school in the hands of a bad master, who, thinking him dull, and being impatient to render him brilliant, beats him about the head and ears till he produces the very evil he would prevent. But, on the present occasion, I forbear to use the poker ; there is no need of it : every thing is comfortable, — every thing snug and sufficient. How equable is the warmth around us ! How cherishing this rug to one's feet ! How com- placent the cup at one's lip ! What a fine broad light is diffused from the fire over the circle, gleaming in the urn and the polished mahogany, bringing out the white gar- ments of the ladies, and giving a poetic warmth to their face and hair! I need not mention all the good things

A DAY BY THE FIRE. 33

that are said at tea, — still less the gallant Good humor never has an audience more disposed to think it wit, nor gallantry an hour of service more blameless and elegant. Ever since tea has been known, its clear and gentle powers of inspiration have been acknowledged, from Wal- ler paying his court at the circle of Catharine of Braganza, to Dr. Johnson receiving homage at the parties of Mrs. Thrale. The former, in his lines, upon hearing it " com- mended by her Majesty," ranks it at once above myrtle and laurel, and her Majesty, of course, agreed with him: —

" Venus her myrtle, Phoebus has his bays ; Tea both excels, which she vouchsafes to praise. The best of queens, and best of herbs, we owe To that bold nation, which the way did show To the fair region where the sun does rise, Whose rich productions we so justly prize. The Muse's friend, Tea, does our fancy aid, Repress those vapours which the head invade, And keeps that palace of the soul serene, Fit, on her birth -day, to salute the Queen."

The eulogies pronounced on his favorite beverage by Dr. Johnson, are too well known to be repeated here ; and the commendatory inscription of the Emperor Kien Long, to an European taste at least, is somewhat too dull, un- less his Majesty's teapot has been shamefully translated. For my own part, though I have the highest respect, as I have already shown, for this genial drink, which is warm to the cold, and cooling to the warm, I confess, as Mon- taigne would have said, that I prefer coffee, — particularly in my political capacity : —

" Coffee, that makes the Politician wise To see through all things with his half-shut eyes."

There is something in it, I think, more lively, and, at the

same time, more substantial. Besides, I never see it but

3

34 A DAY BY THE FIRE.

it reminds me of the Turks and their Arabian tales, — an association infinitely preferable to any Chinese ideas ; and, like the king who put his head into the tub, I am trans- ported into distant lands the moment I dip into the coffee- cup, — at one minute ranging the valleys with Sindbad, at another encountering the fairies on the wing by moonlight, at a third exploring the haunts of the cursed Maugraby, or wrapt into the silence of that delicious solitude from which Prince Agib was carried by the fatal horse. Then, if I wish to poeticize upon it at home, there is Belinda, with her sylphs, drinking it in such state as nothing but poetry can supply : —

" For lo ! the board with cups and spoons is crown'd, The berries crackle, and the mill turns round : On shining altars of japan they raise The silver lamp ; the fiery spirits blaze ; From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide, And China's earth receives the smoking tide : At once they gratify the scent and taste, And frequent cups prolong the rich repast. Straight hover round the fair her airy band ; Some, as she sipp'd, the fuming liquor fann'd ; Some o'er her lap their careful plumes display'd, Trembling, and conscious of the rich brocade."

It must be acknowledged, however, that the general asso- ciation of ideas is at present in favor of tea, which, on that account, has the advantage of suggesting no confine- ment to particular ranks or modes of life. Let there be but a fireside, and anybody, of any denomination, may be fancied enjoying the luxury of a cup of tea, from the duchess in the evening drawing-room, who makes it the instrument of displaying her white hand, to the washer- woman at her early tub, who, having had nothing to signify since five, sits down to it with her shining arms and cor- rugated fingers at six. If there is any one station of life

A DAY BY THE FIRE. 35

in which it is enjoyed to most advantage, it is that of medi- ocrity : that in which all comfort is reckoned to be best appreciated, because, while there is taste to enjoy, there is necessity to earn the enjoyment ; and I cannot conclude the hour before us with a better climax of snugness than is presented in the following pleasing little verses. The author, I believe, is unknown, and may not have been much of a poet in matters of fiction ; but who will deny his taste for matters of reality, or say that he has not handled his subject to perfection ? —

" The hearth was clean, the fire was clear,

The kettle on for tea, Palemon in his elbow-chair, As blest as man could be.

Clarinda, who his heart possess' d,

And was his new-made bride, With head reclin'd upon his breast

Sat toying by his side.

Stretch'd at his feet, in happy state,

A fav'rite dog was laid, By whom a little sportive cat

In wanton humour play'd.

Clarinda's hand he gently prest ;

She stole an amorous kiss, And, blushing, modestly confess'd

The fulness of her bliss.

Palemon, with a heart elate,

Pray'd to Almighty Jove That it might ever be his fate,

Just so to live and love.

Be this eternity, he cried,

And let no more be given : Continue thus my lov'd fireside,

I ask no other heaven."

THE HAPPY FIRESIDE.

36 A DAY BY THE FIRE.

There are so many modes of spending the remainder of the evening between tea-time and bed-time (for I protest against all suppers that are not light enough to be taken on the knee), that a general description would avail me nothing, and I cannot be expected to enter into such a variety of particulars. Suffice it to say that, where the fire is duly appreciated, and the circle good humored, none of them can be unpleasant, whether the party be large or small, young or old, talkative or contemplative. If there is music, a good fire will be particularly grateful to the performers, who are often seated at the farther end of the room ; for it is really shameful that a lady who is charm- ing us all with her voice, or firing us, at the harp or piano, with the lightning of her fingers, should at the very mo- ment be trembling with cold. As to cards, which were invented for the solace of a mad prince, and which are only tolerable, in my opinion, when we can be as mad as he was, that is to say, at a round game, I cannot by any means patronize them, as a conscientious firesider : for, not to mention all the other objections, the card-table is as awkward, in a fireside point of view, as the dinner-table, and is not to be compared with it in sociality. If it be necessary to pay so ill a compliment to the company as to have recourse to some amusement of the kind, there is chess or draughts, which may be played on a tablet by the fire ; but nothing is like discourse, freely uttering the fancy as it comes, and varied, perhaps, with a little music, or with the perusal of some favorite passages which excite the comments of the circle. It is then, if tastes happen to be accordant, and the social voice is frank as well as refined, that the " sweet music of speech " is heard in its best harmony, differing only for apter sweetness, and mingling but for happier participation, while the mu-

A DAY BY THE FIRE. 37

tual sense smilingly blends in with every rising meas- ure,—

" And female stop smoothens the charm o'er all."

This is the finished evening ; this the quickener at once and the calmer of tired thought ; this the spot where our better spirits await to exalt and enliven us, when the daily and vulgar ones have discharged their duty !

" Questo e il Paradiso, Piu dolce, che fra P acque, e fra 1' arene In ciel son le Sirene."

TASSO. — Rime A morose.

" Here, here is found A sweeter Paradise of sound Than where the Sirens take their summer stands Among the breathing waters and glib sands."

Bright fires and joyous faces ; and it is no easy thing for philosophy to say good night. But health must be enjoyed or nothing will be enjoyed, and the charm should be broken at a reasonable hour. Far be it, however, from a rational firesider not to make exceptions to the rule, when friends have been long asunder, or when some do- mestic celebration has called them together, or even when hours peculiarly congenial render it difficult to part. At all events, the departure must be a voluntary matter ; and here I cannot help exclaiming against the gross and villanous trick which some people have, when they wish to get rid of their company, of letting their fires go down, and the snuffs of their candles run to seed : it is paltry and palpa- ble, and argues bad policy as well as breeding ; for such of their friends as have a different feeling of things, may chance to be disgusted with them altogether, while the careless or unpolite may choose to revenge themselves on the appeal, and face it out gravely till the morning. If a

38 A DAY BY THE FIRE.

common visitor be inconsiderate enough, on an ordinary occasion, to sit beyond all reasonable hour, it must be reckoned as a fatality, as an ignorance of men and things, against which you cannot possibly provide : as a sort of visitation, which must be borne with patience, and which is"not likely to recur often, if you know whom you invite, and those who are invited know you. But with an occa- sional excess of the fireside what social virtue shall quar- rel? A single friend, perhaps, loiters behind the rest; you are alone in the house ; you have just got upon a sub- ject delightful to you both; the fire is of a candent bright- ness ; the wind howls out of doors ; the rain beats ; the cold is piercing ! Sit down. This is a time when the most melancholy temperament may defy the clouds and storms, and even extract from them a pleasure that will take no substance by daylight. The ghost of his happi- ness sits by him, and puts on the likeness of former hours ; and if such a man can be made comfortable by the mo- ment, what enjoyment may it not furnish to an unclouded spirit ! If the excess belong not to vice, temperance does not forbid it when it only grows out of the occasion. The. great poet, whom I have quoted so often for the fireside, and who will enjoy it with us to the last, was, like the rest of our great poets, an ardent recommender of temperance in all its branches ; but though he practised what he preached, he could take his night out of the hands of sleep as well as the most entrenching of us. To pass over, as foreign to our subject in point of place, his noble wish that he might uoft outwatch the bear," with what a wrapped-up recollection of snugness, in the elegy on his friend Dioclati, does he describe the fireside enjoyment of \ winter's night ? —

A DAY BY THE FIRE. 39

" Pectora cui credam ? Quis me lenire docebit Mordaces curas? Quis longam fallere noctem Dulcibus alloquiis, grato cum sibilat igni Molle pyrum, et nucibus strepitat focus, et malus Auster Miscet cuncta foris, et desuper intonat ulmo ? "

" In whom shall I confide ? Whose counsel find A balmy med'cine for my troubled mind? Or whose discourse, with innocent delight, Shall fill me now, and cheat the wintry night, When hisses on my hearth the pulpy pear, And black'ning chestnut start and crackle there, While storms abroad the dreary meadows whelm, And the wind thunders through the neighb'ring elm."

COWPER'S Translation.

Even when left alone, there is sometimes a charm in watching out the decaying fire, — in getting closer and closer to it with tilted chair and knees against the bars, and letting the whole multitude of fancies, that work in the night silence, come whispering about the yielding fac- ulties. The world around is silent ; and for a moment the very cares of day seem to have gone with it to sleep, leav- ing you to catch a waking sense of disenthralment, and to commune with a thousand airy visitants that come to play with innocent thoughts. Then, for imagination's sake, not for superstition's, are recalled the stories of the Secret World and the midnight pranks of Fairyism. The fancy roams out of doors after rustics, led astray by the jack- o'-lantern, or minute laughings heard upon the wind, or the night-spirit on his horse that comes flouncing through the air on his way to a surfeited citizen, or the tiny morris- dance that springs up in the watery glimpses of the moon ; or keeping at home, it finds a spirit in every room peeping at it as it opens the door, while a cry is heard from upstairs announcing the azure marks inflicted by —

" The nips of fairies upon maids' white hips,"

4o

A DAY BY THE FIRE.

or hearing a snoring from below, it tiptoes down into the kitchen, and beholds where —

" Lies him down the lubber fiend,

And stretch'd out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength."

Presently the whole band of fairies, ancient and modern, — the demons, sylphs, gnomes, sprites, elves, peries, genii, and above all, the fairies of the fireside, the sala- manders, lob-lie-by-the-fires, lars, lemures, larvae, come flitting between the fancy's eyes, and the dying coals, some with their weapons and lights, others with grave steadfastness on book or dish, others of the softer kind with their arch looks, and their conscious pretence of atti- tude, while a minute music tinkles in the ear, and Oberon gives his gentle order : —

" Through this house in glimmering light

By the dead and drowsy fire, Every elf and fairy sprite

Hop as light as bird from briar ; And this ditty, after me, Sing and dance it trippingly."

Anon, the whole is vanished, and the dreamer, turning his eye down aside, almost looks for a laughing sprite gazing at him from a tiny chair, and mimicking his face and atti- tude. Idle fancies these, and incomprehensible to minds clogged with every-day earthliness ; but not useless, either as an exercise of the invention, or even as adding con- sciousness to the range and destiny of the soul. They will occupy us too, and steal us away from ourselves, when other recollections fail us or grow painful, when friends are found selfish, or better friends can but commiserate, or when the world has nothing in it to compare with what we have missed out of it. They may even lead us to

A DAY BY THE FIRE. 4!

higher and more solemn meditations, till we work up our way beyond the clinging and heavy atmosphere of this earthly sojourn, and look abroad upon the light that knows neither blemish nor bound, while our ears are saluted at that egress by the harmony of the skies, and our eyes be- hold the lost and congenial spirits that we have loved hastening to welcome us with their sparkling eyes, and their curls that are ripe with sunshine.

But earth recalls us again ; the last flame is out ; the fading embers tinkle with a gaping dreariness ; and the chill reminds us where we should be. Another gaze on the hearth that has so cheered us, and the last, lingering action is to wind up the watch for the next day. Upon how many anxieties shall the finger of that brief chron- icler strike, — and upon how many comforts too! To- morrow our fire shall be trimmed anew; and so, gentle reader, good night : may the weariness I have caused you make sleep the pleasanter !

"Let no lamenting cryes, nor dolefull tears, Be heard all night within, nor yet without ; Ne let false whispers, breeding hidden fears, Break gentle sleep with misconceived doubt. Let no deluding dreams, nor dreadful sights, Make sudden, sad affrights,

Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not, Fray us with things that be not ; But let still silence true night-watches keep, That sacred peace may in assurance reigne, And timely sleep, since it is time to sleep, May pour his limbs forth on your pleasant plaine."

SPENSER'S Epithalamion.*

* In the new edition of "The Round Table," published in the Bayard Series of books, this article is given to Hazlitt. " Our style bewrays us," says Burton ; and " A Day by the Fire " is full of Leigh Hunt's peculiarities of thought and diction. The question of authorship, however, is not to be de-

42 ON COMMONPLACE PEOPLE,

ON COMMONPLACE PEOPLE.

,™ GREEABLY to our chivalrous, as well as do- 7/\ \^f mestic, character, and in order to show further in what sort of spirit we shall hereafter confer blame and praise, whom we shall cut up for the benefit of humanity, and to whom apply our healing balsams, we have thought fit, in our present number, to take the part of a very numerous and ill-treated body of persons, known by the various appellations of commonplace people, — dull fellows, or people who have nothing to say.

It is perhaps wrong, indeed, to call these persons com- monplace. Those who are the most vehement in object- ing to them have the truest right to the title, however little they may suspect it ; but of this more hereafter. It is a name by which the others are very commonly known ; though they might rather be called persons of simple common sense, and, in fact, have just enough of that val- uable quality to inspire them with the very quietness which brings them into so much contempt.

We need not, however, take any pains to describe a set of people so well known. They are, of course, what none of our readers are, but many are acquainted with. They are the more silent part of companies, and generally the

cided upon internal evidence ; facts prove that the essay was written by the author of the "Story of Rimini." The prolusion was originally published in the " Reflector," with Hunt's well-known signature, — WIT"- It waa afterwards re-printed in the " Examiner," as one of " The Round Table " papers. When these essays were collected into a volume, Leigh Hunt's ini- tials were printed at the end of " A Day by the Fire ; " and Hazlitt, in the preface to this original edition of "The Round Table," says, "out of the fifty-two numbers, twelve are Mr. Hunt's, with the signature, L. H." — ED.

ON COMMONPLACE PEOPLE. 43

best behaved people at table. They are the best of dumb waiters near the lady of the house. They are always at leisure to help you to good things, if not to say them. They will supply your absence of mind for you while you are talking, and believe you are taking sugar for pepper. Above all, — which ought to recommend them to the very hardest of their antagonists, — they are uninquiring laugh- ers at jokes, and most exemplary listeners.

Now, we do not say that these are the very best of com- panions, or that when we wished to be particularly amused or informed we should invite them to our houses, or go to see them at theirs ; all we demand is that they should be kindly and respectfully treated when they are by, and not insolently left out of the pale of discourse, purely because they may not bring with them as much as they find, or say as brilliant things as we imagine we do ourselves.

This is one of the faults of over-civilization. In a stage of society like the present, there is an intellectual as well as personal coxcombry apt to prevail, which leads people to expect from each other a certain dashing turn of mind, and an appearance, at least, of having ideas, whether they can afford them or not. Their minds endeavor to put on intelligent attitudes, just as their bodies do graceful ones ; and every one who, from conscious modesty, or from not thinking about the matter, does not play the same monkey tricks with his natural deficiency, is set down for a dull fellow, and treated with a sort of scornful resentment, for differing with the others. It is equally painful and amus- ing to see how the latter will look upon an honest fellow of this description, if they happen to find him in a com- pany where they think he has no business. On the first entrance of one of these intolerant men of wisdom, — to see, of course, a brilliant friend of his, — he concludes

44 ON COMMONPLACE PEOPLE.

that all the party are equally lustrous ; but finding, by de- grees, no flashes from an unfortunate gentleman on his right, he turns stiffly towards him at the first commonplace remark, measures him from head to foot with a kind of wondering indifference, and then falls to stirring his tea with a half-inquiring glance at the rest of the company, — just as much as to say, "a fellow not overburdened, eh ? " or, "who the devil has Tom got here ? "

Like all who are tyrannically given, and of a bullying turn of mind, — which is by no means confined to those who talk loudest, — these persons are apt to be as obse- quious and dumb-stricken before men of whom they have a lofty opinion as they are otherwise in the case above mentioned. This, indeed, is not always the case ; but you may sometimes find out one of the caste by seeing him waiting with open mouth and impatient eyes for the brill- iant things which the great gentleman to whom he has been introduced is bound to utter. The party, perhaps, are waiting for dinner, and as silent as most Englishmen, not very well known to each other, are upon such occa- sions. Our hero waits with impatience to hear the cele- brated person open his mouth, and is at length gratified ; but not hearing very distinctly, asks his next neighbor, in a serious and earnest whisper, what it was.

" Pray, sir, what was it that Mr. W. said ? "

" He says that it is particularly cold."

" Oh, — particularly cold."

The gentleman thinks this no very profound remark for so great a man, but puts on as patient a face as he can, and, refreshing himself with shifting one knee over the other, waits anxiously for the next observation. After a little silence, broken only by a hem or two, and by some- body's begging pardon of a gentleman next him for touch-

ON COMMONPLACE PEOPLE. 45

ing his shoe, Mr. W. is addressed by a friend, and the stranger is all attention.

" By the bye, W., how did you get home last night ?"

" Oh, very well, thank'ye ; I couldn't get a coach, but it was'nt very rainy, and I was soon there, and jumped into bed."

"Ah, there's nothing like bed after getting one's coat wet."

" Nothing, indeed. I had the clothes round me in a twinkling, and in two minutes was as fast as a church."

Here the conversation drops again ; and our delighter in intellect cannot hide from himself his disappointment. The description of pulling the clothes round, he thinks, might have been much more piquant ; and the simile, as fast as a church, appears to him wonderfully commonplace from a man of wit. But such is his misfortune. He has no eyes but for something sparkling or violent ; and no more expects to find any thing simple in genius, than any thing tolerable in the want of it.

Persons impatient of others' deficiencies are, in fact, likely to be equally undiscerning of their merits ; and are not aware, in either case, how much they are exposing the deficiencies on their own side. Not only, however, do they get into this dilemma, but what is more, they are lowering their respectability beneath that of the dullest person in the room. They show themselves deficient, not merely in the qualities they miss in him, but in those which he really possesses, such as self-knowledge and good tem- per. Were they as wise as they pretend to be, they would equal him in these points, and know how to extract some- thing good from him in spite of his deficiency in the other ; for intellectual qualities are not the only ones that excite the reflections, or conciliate the regard, of the truly intel-

46 ON COMMONPLACE PEOPLE.

ligent, — of those who can study human nature in all its bearings, and love it, or sympathize with it, for all its affec- tions. The best part of pleasure is the communication of it. Why must we be perpetually craving for amusement or information from others (an appetite which, after all, will be seldom acknowledged), and never think of bestow- ing them ourselves ? Again, as the best part of pleasure is that we have just mentioned, the best proof of intel- lectual power is that of extracting fertility from barrenness, or so managing the least cultivated mind, which we may happen to stumble upon, as to win something from it. Setting even this talent aside, there are occasions when it is refreshing to escape from the turmoil and final nothingness of the understanding, and repose upon that contentedness of mediocrity which seems to have attained its end with- out the trouble of wisdom. It has often delighted me to observe a profound thinker of my acquaintance, when a good natured person of ordinary understanding has been present. He is reckoned severe, as it is called, in many of his opinions : and is thought particularly to overrate his intellectual qualities in general ; and yet it is beautiful to see how he will let down his mind to the other's level, taking pleasure in his harmless enjoyment, and assenting to a thousand truisms, one after another, as familiar to him as his finger-ends. The reason is that he pierces deeper into the nature of the human being beside him, can make his very deficiencies subservient to his own speculations, and, above all, knows that there is something worth all the knowledge upon earth, — which is happiness and a genial nature. It is thus that the sunshine of happy faces is re- flected upon our own. We may even find a beam of it in every thing that -Heaven looks upon. The dullest minds do not vegetate for nothing, any more than the grass in a

HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY. 47

green lawn. We do not require the trees to talk with us, or get impatient at the monotonous quiet of the fields and hedges. We love them for their contrast to noise and bustle, for their presenting to us something native and elementary, for the peaceful thoughts they suggest to us, and the part they bear in the various beauty of creation.

Is a bird's feather exhibited in company, or a piece of sea-weed, or a shell that contained the stupidest of created beings, every one is happy to look at it, and the most fas- tidious pretender in the room will delight to expatiate on its beauty and contrivance. Let this teach him charity and good sense, and inform him that it is the grossest of all coxcombry to dwell with admiration on a piece of in- sensibility, however beautiful, and find nothing to excite pleasing or profitable reflections in the commonest of his fellow-men.

A POPULAR VIEW OF THE HEATHEN MY- THOLOGY.

| HE divinities of the ancient mythology are of a very tangible order. They were personifica- tions of the power of the external world, and of the operations of the intellect ,' and some- times merged themselves into the particular providence of an eminent prince or reformer. Mankind wishing to have distinct ideas of the unknown powers of the universe, naturally painted them at first in their own shapes ; and not being able to conceive of them otherwise than by the light of their understanding, they as naturally gifted them with their own faculties, moral and intellect-

48 HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY.

ual. Hence, the heathen gods were reflections of the qualities most admired or feared during the times in which they originated ; and to the same cause were owing the inconsistencies and the vices palmed upon them by the stories of different ages and nations, whose gods became lumped together ; and hence the trouble that the philoso- pher had in endeavoring to reconcile the popular super- stitions with a theology more becoming.* Plutarch, who was a priest at Delphi, and a regular devout pagan, but good-hearted and imbued with philosophy, is shocked at the popular stories of the rapes and quarrels of the gods ; and Plato, on a similar account, was for banishing Homer from his republic. Plutarch will not allow that it was the real Apollo who fought a serpent and afterwards had to purify himself. He said it must have been a likeness of him, a demon. In other words the gods of Plutarch were to resemble the highest ideas which Plutarch could form of dignity and power. Hence, the greater philoso- phers whose ardor in the pursuit of truth rendered them still more desirous of departing from conventional degra- dations of it, came to agree that the nature of the deity was inconceivable ; and that the most exalted being they

* Virtue or vice either if accompanied with power, will do to make a god of in barbarous times, and till mankind learn the perniciousness of that sort of apotheosis. An Eastern writer says that Pharaoh wished to pass for a divinity with his subjects, and had frequent conversation with the devil for that pur- pose. The devil put him off from time to time, till he told him one day that the hour was arrived. " How is that," cried Pharaoh, — "why is it time now, and was not before?" — "The reason is," replied the devil, " that you have not hitherto been quite bad enough : at length you have become intolerable, and there is no alternative between a revolt of your subjects, and their belief in your being a god. Once persuade them of that, and there is nothing so ex- travagant, either in word or deed, which they will not take from you with re- spect." D^Herbelott article Feraoun.

HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY. 49

could fancy was at an incalculable distance from it, — an emanation, a being deputed, a sort of spiritual incarnation of one of the divine thoughts ; — if we may so speak with- out absurdity and without blame. Plato, for instance, observing the moral imperfections of our planet, and not knowing how to account for them any more than we do (for the first cause of evil is always left in the dark), imag- ined that this world was created by what he called a Dem- iurgus, or inferior divine energy ; just as an artist less than Raphael might paint a fine picture though not so good as what might have come from the hands of the greater one. If you asked him how he made out that the chief creator did not do the work himself, he would have referred you to the fact of the imperfection and to the existence of dif- ferent degrees of skill and beauty in which we see all about us ; for he thought he had a rfght to argue from analogy, in default of more certain principles. This right he undoubtedly possessed, and it was natural and reasona- ble to exert it ; but considering the imperfection of the human faculties and the false reports they make to us, even of things cognizable to the senses, it is, in truth, im- possible to argue with any certainty from things human to things divine. The only service to all appearance, which our faculties can do for us in these questions, is to save us from the admission of gratuitous absurdities and dogmas dishonorable to the idea of a Divine Being, and to en- courage us to guess handsomely and to good purpose. For sincerity at all events must not be gainsaid ; other- wise belief and probability and principle and natural love and the earth itself slide from under our feet. The mys- tery of the permission of evil still remained ; the mystery of imperfection and of cause itself was only thrown back ; and in fact the invention of the Demiurgus was merely 4

tjo HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY.

shifting the whole mystery of Deity from a first cause to a second. The old dilemma between omnipotence and om- nibenevolence perplexed the understanding then, as it does now ; and as this world was made the reflection of every other, or rather as evil was supposed to render all the operations of the Deity imperfect, except immediately in his own sphere ; men seem to have overlooked among other guesses, the probability that evil may exist only in petty corners or minute portions of the universe, and even then be only the result of an experiment with certain ele- mentary compounds to see whether they cannot be made planets of perfect happiness as well as the rest For, after all, Plato's assumption of the innate and unconscious diffi- culty which matter presents in the working (or an inability of some sort, whatever it be, to render things perfect at once), is surely the best assumption among the hundreds that have been taken for granted on this point ; seeing that it sets aside malignity, encourages hope, and stimu- lates us to an active and benign state of endeavor such as we may conceive to enlist us in the divine service. We must never take any thing on trust in order to make a handle of it for dictation or hypocrisy, or a selfish security, or an indolence which we may dignify with the title of res- ignation ; but as we are compelled to assume or conjec- ture something or other, unless indeed we are deficient in the imaginative part of our nature, it is best to assume the best candidly, and acknowledge it to be an assumption in order that we may do the utmost we can. Happy opinions are the wine of the heart. What if this world be an ex- periment, part of which consists in our own co-operation, that is to say, in trying how far the inhabitants of it can acquire energy enough, and do credit enough, to the first cause, to add it finally to the number of blessed stars ?

HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY. 51

and what if more direct communication with us on the part of the operator, would of necessity put an end to the experiment? The petty human considerations of pride and modesty have nothing to do with the cordial magni- tude of such guesses ; and the beauty of them consists, we think, not merely in their cheerfulness and real piety, but in their adaptation to all experimental systems of util- ity, those of the most exclusive utilitarians not excepted. Such we confess is our own creed, which we boast at the same time to be emphatically Christian ; and the good which our enthusiasm cannot help thinking such an opin- ion might do, will excuse us with the readers for this di- gression.*

The gods of Greece, taken in the popular view of them, were, upon the whole a jovial company, occasionally dis- persed about the world, and assembling on Mount Olym-

* The hope of a happier state of things on earth, argues nothing against a life hereafter. The fitness of a human soul for immortality may be a part of the experiment. The divinest preacher of eternity that has appeared, ex- pressly anticipated a happier period for mankind in their human state, though many who are called his followers are eager to load both themselves and the world they live in with contumely, — themselves as "innately vicious," and the world as " a vale of tears." Such are the compliments they think to pay their Creator ! Yet these are the persons who talk with the greatest devo- tion of resigning themselves to God's will, and who pique themselves upon hav- ing the most exalted ideas of his nature! How much better to think it his will that they should bestir themselves to improve their own natures and the world ! How much better to think it consonant with his nature that they should help to drain the " vale of tears," as they call it, just as they would any other valley, beauteous and full of resources I They do not think it necessary to be resigned when they can work for themselves ; why should they when they can work for others ? Resignation is always good, provided it means only patience in the midst of endeavor, or repose after it ; but when it implies a mere folding of the hands, and a despair of making any thing good out of "God's own work," it is surely the lowest and most equivocal aspect under which piety could wish to be drawn.

52

HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY.

pus. They dined and supped there, and made love like a party of gallants at a king's table. A pretty girl served instead of a butler ; and the Muse played the part of a band.* When they came down to earth, they behaved like the party going home ; made love again after their fashion ; interfered in quarrels, frightened the old and the feeble ; and next day joined a campaign, or presided at an orthodox meeting. In short, they did whatever the vulgar thought gallant and heroical, and were particularly famous for having their own way. If a god offended against all humanity, he had his reasons for it, and was a privileged person. He could do no wrong. But if humanity went counter to a god, the offender and all his generation were to suffer for it. A lady who had resisted the violence of his virtue, was not to be believed whenever she spoke the truth ; or your brother became an owl or a flint-stone ; or your son was to become a criminal, or a madman, because his grandfather unwittingly married against the god's con- sent. The vulgar thought how wilful and unjust they would be themselves if they had power ; they saw how much kings were given to those kinds of peccadilloes ; and therefore, if they could have become gods, how much more they would have been ungodly ! It is true the phi- losopher refined upon all this : and agreeably to the way in which Nature works, there was a sort of cultivation of energy underneath it and an instinct of something beyond

* See the description in books and prints, the marriage of Cupid and Psyche. Raphael made a picture of it. Augustus is charged with having made an im- pious entertainment in imitation of these "charming noons and nights divine." Ben Jonson, we suppose in consideration of King James, who besides being a classical monarch, was devout as well as debauched, — has taken the liberty of misrepresenting the charge in his Poetaster, and making Augustus astonished at the impiety in others.

HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY. 53

the common theories of right and wrong. Nature's char- acter remained safe, and her good work proceeded. The divinity within us was superior to the ideas of him which we threw up.

Homer makes the gods of a mighty size. His Neptune goes a hundred miles at a stride. This grandeur is of a questionable sort. Homer's men become little in propor- tion as the gods become great ; and Mars and Minerva lording it over a battle, are like giants "tempesting" among a parcel of mice. The less they were seen, the less the dignity on either side was compromised ; for their effect might be as gigantic as possible.

The truest grandeur is moral. When there is a heaven- quake because Jupiter has bent his brows ; — when Apollo comes down in his wrath "like night-time," and a plague falls upon the people ; when a fated man in a tragedy is described sleeping at the foot of an altar with three tre- mendous looking women (the furies) keeping an eye upon him ; — when a doomed old man in a grove is called away by a voice, — after which he is never more seen ; or to turn the brighter side of power, when Bacchus leaps out of his chariot in Titian's picture, looking (to our mortal eyes) with the fierce gravity of a wine-god's-energy, though he comes to comfort a mourner ; or to sum up all that is sweet as well as powerful, when Juno goes to Venus to borrow her girdle, in order that she may appear irresistible in the eyes of Jupiter ; it is then we feel all the force and beauty of the Greek fables ; and an inti- macy with their sculpture shows us the eternal youth of tli is beauty, and renders it a sort of personal acquaint- ance.

Milton wrote some fine verses on the cessation of hea- then oracles, in which while he thinks he is triumphing

54 HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY.

over the dissolution of the gods like a proper Christian, he is evidently regretting and lingering over them, as was natural to a poet. He need not have lamented. A proper sense of universality knows how to reconcile the real beauty of all creeds ; and the gods survive in the midst of his own epic, lifted by his own hand above the degrada- tion to which he has thrust them. Vulcan, he says, was called Mammon in heaven, and was a fallen angel. But he has another name for him better than either. Hear how he rolls the harmony of his vowels.

Nor was his name unheard, or unador'd In ancient Greece ; and in Ausonian land Men call'd him Mulciber ; and how he fell From heav'n, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o'er the crystal battlements. From morn To noon he fell ; — from noon to dewy eve, — A summer's day ; and with the setting sun Dropt from the zenith like a falling star On Lemnos th' ./Egean Isle. Thus they relate, Erring.

PAR. LOST, Book I.

" Not more than you did," Homer might have said to him in Elysium, " when you called my divine architect a sordid archangel fond of gold, and made him fall from a state of perfect holiness and bliss, which was impossible."

"Brother, brother," Milton might have said, glancing at the author of the " Beggar's Opera," "we were both in the wrong; — except when you were painting Helen and Andromache, or sending your verses forward like a de- vouring fire."

" Or you," would the heroic ancient rejoin, " when you made us acquainted with the dignity of those two gentle creatures in Paradise, and wrote verses full of tranquil superiority, which make mine appear to me like the talk- ing of Mars compared with that of Jupiter."

HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY. 55

No heathen paradise, according to Milton, could com- pare with his ; yet in saying so, he lingers so fondly among the illegal shades that it is doubtful which he pre- fers.

Not that fair field

Of Enna, where Proserpine, gathering flowers, Herself a fairer flow'r by gloomy Dis Was gather'd ; which cost Ceres all that pain To seek her through the world ; nor that sweet grove Of Daphne, by Orontes, and the inspir'd Castalian spring, might with this Paradise Of Eden strive ; nor that Nyseian isle Girt with the river Triton, where old Cham. Whom gentiles Ammon call and Lybian Jove, Hid Amalthea, and her florid son, Young Bacchus, from his step-dame Rhea's eye.

Milton had, in fact, settled this question of the inde- structibility of paganism in his youth. His college exer- cises showing that " nature could not grow old," showed also that the gods and goddesses must remain with her. The style of Milton's Latin verses is founded on Ovid ; but his love of a conscious and sonorous music renders it his own, and perhaps there is nothing more like the elder English Milton than these young exercises of his in a classical language.

Dr. Johnson objects to Milton's Lycidas (which is an elegy on a lost companion of his studies), that " passion plucks no berries from the myrtle and ivy ; nor calls upon Arethuse and Mincius ; nor tells of rough Satyrs and Fauns -with cloven heel" To which Wharton very prop- erly answers, "but poetry does this: and in the hands of Milton does it with a peculiar and irresistible charm. Sub- ordinate poets exercise no invention when they tell how a shepherd has lost a companion, and must feed his flocks alone, without any judge of his skill in piping; but Milton

56 HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY.

dignifies and adorns these common artificial incidents with unexpected touches of picturesque beauty, with the graces of sentiment and with the novelties of original genius." Wharton says further, that "poetry is not always uncon- nected with passion," and then gives an instance out of the poem where Milton speaks of the body of his lost friend. But he might have added that poetry itself is a passion; that Fleet Street and "the Mitre," though very good things, are not the only ones ; that these two young friends lived in the imaginative, as well as the every-day world ; that the survivor most probably missed the com- panion of his studies more on the banks of the Arethuse and the Mincius, than he did in the college grounds ; in short, that there is a state of poetical belief, in which the images of truth and beauty which are by their nature lasting, become visible and affecting to the mind in pro- portion to the truth and beauty of its own tact for univer- sality. Bacon, though no poet, had it, and adorned his house with pagan sculptures ; because, being a universal philosopher, he included a knowledge of what was poetical. All the poets have had it as a matter of course, more or less ; but the greatest most of all. Shakespeare included it for the very reason that he left no part of the world un- sympathized with ; namely, that he was, of all poets, the most universal.

Hyperion's curls ; the front of Jove himself; An eye like Mars to threaten and command ; A station like the herald Mercury, New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill.

These Miltonic lines flowed from the same pen that recorded the vagaries of Falstaff and Mrs. Quickly. Dr. Johnson would have made a bad business of the heathen mythology. He did so when he made a Turk pull his

HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY. 57

enemy out of the " Pleiad's golden chariot"* He was conversant only with what is called real life ; wonderfully well indeed, and with great wit and good sense ; but there he stopped. He might have as soon undertaken to de- scribe a real piece of old poetical beauty, or passion either, as clap his wig on the head of Apollo. He laughed with reason at Prior, for comparing his Chloes to Venus and Diana, and talking of their going out a hunting with ivory quivers graceful at their side. This was the French no- tion of using the Greek fables ; and with the French, in- deed, the heathen mythology became the most spurious and the most faded of drugs. They might as well have called a box of millinery the oracle of Delphi. The Ger- mans understood it better, but we do not think it has ever been revived to more beautiful account than in the young poetry and remote haunts of imagination of the late Mr. Keats. He lamented that he could not do it justice. " Oh, how unlike," he cries, speaking of the style of his fine poem, Hyperion,

To that large utterance of the early gods 1

But this was the modesty of a real poet. Milton him- self would have been happy to read his Hyperion aloud, and to have welcomed the new spirit among the choir of poets, with its

Elysian beauty, melancholy grace.

Mr. Shelley beautifully applied to his young friend the distich of Plato upon Agathon, who having been, he says, a morning star among the living, was now an evening

* In his tragedy of Irene. Gibbon has noticed it somewhere in the Decline

and Fall.

58 HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY.

star in the shades. Here, also, was the true taste of the antique. Nay, it is possible that the melancholy of mod- ern genius to the eyes of which a larger and obscurer world has been thrown open, may have discovered a more imaginative character in the mythology of the ancient poets, than accompanies our usual notion of it. The cheerfulness of all those poets, except the dramatic ones, and the everlasting and visible youth of their sculptures, come before us, and make us think of nothing but Pan and Pomona, of Bacchus, Apollo, and the Graces. Nor is it possible to deny that this is the general and perhaps the just impression, though exaggerated ; and that the Pyth- ian organ, with all its grandeur, does not roll such peals

Of pomp and threatening harmony

as those of the old Gregorian chapels, and the mingling hierarchies of earth and heaven.* Unfortunately the grandest parts of all religions have hitherto appealed to the least respectable of our passions, — our fear. It is the beauty of the truly divine part of Christianity that it ap- peals to love ; and if it then inspires melancholy, it is one of a nobler sort, animating us to endeavor and promising a state of things, to which the grandeur both of Paganism and Catholicism may become as the dreams of remem- bered sickness in infancy.

At all events, it is certain that some of the great modern poets in consequence of their remoteness from the age of pagan belief, and its every-day effect on the mind, often

* On the Feast of St. Michael and All Saints, the Catholic Church believes that the whole of the faithful on earth and in heaven, with all the angelical hierarchies, are lifting up their voices in unison ! one of the sublimest and most beautiful fancies that ever entered into the heart of man.

GENII OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. 59

write in a nobler manner upon the gods of antiquity than the ancients themselves. He that would run the whole round of the spirit of heathenism to perfection, must be- come intimate with the poetry of Milton and Spenser ; of Ovid, Homer, Theocritus, and the Greek tragedians ; with the novels of Wieland, the sculptures of Phidias and others, and the pictures of Raphael, and the Caraccis, and Nicholas Poussin. But a single page of Spenser or one morning at the Angerstein Gallery, will make him better acquainted with it than a dozen such folios as Spence's Polymetis, or all the mythologists and book-poets who have attempted to draw Greek inspiration from a Latin fount.

ON THE GENII OF THE GREEKS AND RO- MANS, AND THE SPIRIT THAT WAS SAID TO HAVE WAITED ON SOCRATES.

HE angelical or middle beings of the Greeks and Romans are called by the common name of genii, though the term is not correct, for the Greeks were unacquainted with the word genius. Their spirit was called a demon ; and we suspect that a further distinction is to be drawn between the two words, for a reason which will be seen by and by. The ill sense in which demon is now taken, originated with the Fathers of the Church, who, assuming that a pagan intelligence must be a bad one, caused the word to become synonymous with devil. But there are few tilings more remarkable than the abundant use which the Church made of the speculations of the Greek philoso-

60 GENII OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.

phers, and the contempt with which indiscreet members of it have treated them. Take away the subtleties of the Platonic theology from certain sects of Christians, and their very orthodoxy would tumble to pieces.

Demon, if it be derived, as most of the learned think, from a word signifying to know by inquiry, and the root of which signifies a torch, may be translated the enlight- ened, or, simply, a light or intelligence. A blessed spirit, eternally increasing in knowledge or illumination (which some think will be one of its beatitudes), gives an enlarged sense to the word demon.

Plato certainly had no ill opinion of his demon, even when the intelligence was acting in a manner which the vulgar pronounced to be evil, and upon which the philoso- pher has delivered a sentiment equally profound and hu- mane. The following may be regarded as a summary of his notions about the spiritual world. Taking up the reli- gion of his country, as proclaimed by Hesiod and others, and endeavoring to harmonize it with reason, he conceived that, agreeably to the ranks and gradations which we fancy in nature, there must be intermediate beings between men and gods, — the gods themselves being far from the top of spirituality. We have already stated his opinions on that subject. Next to the gods came the demons, who partook of their divinity mixed with what he called the soul of the world, and ministered round about them as well as on earth ; in fact, were the angels of the Christian system but a little more allied to their superiors. " What other philosophers called demons," says the devout platonical Jew Philo, " Moses usually called angels." * Next to

* There is good reason to believe that Dionysius, the pretended Areopagite, who is the great authority with writers upon the angelical nature, was a Platon-

GEXII OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. 6l

demons, but farther apart from them than demons were from the gods, and yet partaking of the angelical office, were heroes, or spirits clothed in a light ethereal body, and partaking still more of the soul of the world ; perhaps the souls of men who had been heroical on earth, or sent down to embody them to that end. And lastly came the souls of men, which were the faintest emanation of the Deity, and clogged with earthly clothing in addition to the mundane nature of their spirits.*

The chiefs among these spiritual beings were very like the gods, and often mistaken for them, which is said to have given them great satisfaction. It is upon the strength of this fancy that attempts were made to account for the

izing Christian of the school of Alexandria. If so, there is no saying how far we are not indebted for our ordinary notions of angels themselves to Plato, nor indeed how far the Christian and Jewish angel and the demon of the Greeks are not one and the same spirit ; for it is impossible to say how much of the Jewish Cabala is not Alexandrian. On the other hand, the Platonists of that city mixed up their dogmas with the Oriental philosophy, so that the angel comes round again to the East, and is traceable to Persia and India. Nothing of all this need shake him ; for it is in the heart and hopes of man that his nest is found. Plato's angel, Pythagoras's, Philo's, Zoroaster's, and Jeremy Tay- lor's, are all the same spirit under different names ; and those who would love him properly, must know as much, or they cannot. Henry Moore and others, who may be emphatically styled our angelical doctors, avowedly undertook to unite the Platonic, Pythagorean, and Cabalistic opinion. (See Enfield's Abridgment of Brucker.) It is true they derived them all from the Hebrew, — which is about as much as if they had said that the Egyptians were skilled in all the learning of Moses, instead of Moses in all the learning of the Egyp- tians.

* Demons and heroes were the angels and saints of the Catholic hierarchy. They had their chapels, altars, feasts, and domestic worship precisely in the same spirit ; and the souls of the departed were from time to time added to the list. (See the Abbe Banier's "Mythology and Fables of the Ancients," ex- plained from history, vol. iii. p. 434.) The heroines were the female saints. We make this remark in no ironical spirit, though the Abbe would not thank us fcr it.

62 GENII OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.

stories of the gods, and their freaks upon earth ; for de- mons, any more than angels, were not incapable of a little aberration. The supposed visits, for instance, of Jupiter down to earth, when he came —

" Now, like a ram, fair Helle to pervert, Now, like a bull, Europa to withdraw,"

were the work of those spirits about him, who may truly be called the jovial, and who delighted in bearing his name, as a Scottish clan does that of its chieftain. We have already mentioned the pious indignation of Plutarch at the indiscreet tales of the poets. It is remarkable that, according to Plato, these satellites encircled their master precisely in the manner of the angelical hierarchies. "But how different," it may be said, "were their na- tures ! " Not, perhaps, quite so much so as may be fancied. We have already hinted a resemblance in one point ; and, in others, the advantage has not always been kept on the proper side. Milton's angels, when they let down the unascendable, heavenly staircase to imbitter the agonies of Satan, did a worse thing than any recorded of the Ju- piters and Apollos. We must be cautious how, in attrib- uting one or two virtues to a set of beings, we think we endow them with all the rest.

Demons were not, as some thought them, the souls of men. The latter had the honor of assisting demons, but were a separate class. Indeed, according to Plato, the word soul might as well have been put for man, in opposi- tion to spirit ; for he held that the human being was prop- erly a soul, using the body only as an instrument. Nor was this soul the guardian angel or demon, though some- times called a demon by reason of its superiority, but man himself. It was immortal, pre-existent ; and the object

GENII OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. 63

of virtue was to restore it to its former state of beatitude in certain regions of light, from which it had fallen. This, among other doctrines of Plato, has been a favorite one with the poets, and would appear to have been seriously entertained by one of the present day.* What difficulty it clears, or what trouble it takes away, we cannot see. Progression is surely a better doctrine than recovery ; especially if we look upon evil as partial, fugitive, and con- vertible, like a hard substance, to good. Besides, we should take the whole of our species with us, and not al- ways be looking after our own lost perfections.

The guardian demons assigned to man, came out of the whole of these orders indiscriminately. Their rank was proportioned to the virtue and intelligence of the individ- ual. Plotinus and others had guardian demons of a very high order. The demon of Socrates is said to have been called a god, because it was of the order that were taken for gods. It was the business of this spiritual attendant to be a kind of soul in addition. The soul, or real man, governed the animal part of us ; and the demon governed the soul. He was a tutor accompanying the pupil. If the pupil did amiss, it was not the tutor's fault. He lamented, and tried to mend it, perhaps, by subjecting it to some misery, or even vice. The process in this case is not very clear. Good demons appear sometimes to be distinct from bad ones, sometimes to be confounded with them. The vulgar supposed, with the Jesuit who wrote the " Pan- theon," that every person had two demons assigned to him : one a good demon who incited him to virtue ; the other a bad one, who prompted him " to all manner of vice

* " Our life is but a dream and a forgetting."

WORDSWORTH.

64 GENII OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.

and wickedness." * But the benign logic of Plato rejected a useless malignity. Evil when it came, was supposed to be for a good purpose : or rather not being of a nature to be immediately got rid of, was turned to good account ; and man was ultimately the better for it. The demon did every thing he could to exalt the intellect of his charge, to regulate his passions, and perfect his nature through- out ; in short, to teach his soul, as the soul aspired to teach the body ; and what is remarkable, though he could not supply fate itself, he is said to have supplied things fortuitous ; that is to say, " to give us a chance," as we phrase it, and put us in the way of shaping what we were to suppose was rough-hewn. This was reversing the Shakespearian order of Providence, or rather, perhaps, giving it a new meaning ; for we, or the untaught part of us, and fate, might be supposed to go blindly to the same end, did not our intelligence keep on the alert.

There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.f

* See the " Pantheon " attributed to Mr. Tooke. Tooke's " Pantheon " is a rifacimento of King's " Pantheon," which was a translation from a Jesuit of the name of Pomey. It contains "in every page, an elaborate calumny," says Mr. Baldwin, "upon the gods of the Greeks, and that in the coarsest thoughts and words that taverns could furnish. The author seems continually haunted by the fear that his pupil might prefer the religion of Jupiter to the religion of Christ." — Baldwin's " Pantheon," preface, p. 5. This philosophi- cal mythologist is of opinion that there was no ground for fear of that sort. We have observed elsewhere how little the young readers of Tooke think of the abuse at all ; but if they had any sense of it, undoubtedly it goes in Jupi- ter's favor. We believe there is one thing which is not lost upon them, and that is, the affected horror and secret delight with which the Jesuit dwells upon certain vagaries of the gayer deities. Besides, he paints sometimes in good, admiring earnest ; and then the boys attend to him as gravely. See, for in- stance, the beginning of his chapter on Venus, which, if we read once at school, we read a thousand times, comparing it with the engraving.

t See Taylor's and Sydenham's " Translations of Plato," vol. i. p. 16, and vol. li. p. 308.

GENII OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. 65

If all this is not much clearer than attempts to explain such matters are apt to be, and if the parts of Plato's the- ology (which were derived from the national creed) do little honor sometimes to the general spirit of it, which was his own ; there is something at all times extremely elevating in his aspirations after the good and beautiful. St. Augustin complained that the reading of Plato made him proud. We do believe that it is impossible for read- ers of any enthusiasm to sit long over some of his writings (the Banquet for instance) and not feel an unusual exalta- tion of spirit, — a love of the good and beautiful, for their own sakes, and in honor of human nature. But there is no danger, we conceive, provided we correct this poetical state of self-aspiration with a remembrance of the admo- nitions of Christianity, — the sympathy with our fellow- creatures. The more hope we have of ourselves under that correction, the more we shall have of others.

The great point is to elevate ourselves by elevating hu- manity at large.

It is difficult to know what to make of the demon of Socrates. It is clear that he laid claim to a special con- sciousness of this attendant spirit — a sort of revelation, that we believe had never before been vouchsafed. The spirit gave him intimations rather what to avoid than to do ; for the Platonists tell us, that Socrates was led by his own nature to do what was right ; but out of the fer- vor of his desire to do it, was liable to be mistaken in the season. For instance, he had a tendency to give the ben- efit of his wisdom to all men indiscriminately ; and here the demon would sometimes warn him off, that he might not waste his philosophy upon a fool. This was at least an ingenious and mortifying satire. But the spirit interfered also on occasions that seem very trifling, though accord- 5

66 GENII OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.

ant with the office assigned to him by Plato of presiding over fortuitous events. Socrates was going one day to see a friend in company with some others, when he made a sudden halt, and told them that his demon had advised him not to go down that street, but to choose another. Some of them turned back, but others persisting in the path before them, " on purpose as 'twere, to confute Socra- tes his demon," encountered a herd of muddy swine, and came home with their clothes all over dirt. Charillus, a musician who had come to Athens to see the philosopher Cebes, got especially mudded, so that now and then, says Plutarch. " he and his friends would think in merriment on Socrates his demon, wondering that it never forsook the man, and that Heaven took such particular care of him."* It was particular enough in heaven, to be sure, to hinder a philosopher from having his drapery damaged ; but we suppose matters would have been worse, had he gone the way of the inferior flesh. He would have made it worth the pigs' while to be more tragical.

This demon is the only doubtful thing about the char- acter of Socrates, for as to the common misconceptions of him, they are but the natural conclusions of vulgar minds ; and Aristophanes, who became a traitor to the graces he had learned at his table, and condescended to encourage the misconceptions in order to please the instinctive jeal- ousy of the men of wit and pleasure about town, was but a splendid buffoon. But when we reflect that the wisdom inculcated by Socrates was of a nature particularly straightforward and practical; this supernatural twist in

* See the story as related by Plutarch, and translated by Creech, in the "Morals by several Hands." Vol. II. p. 287. The street preferred by the philosopher was " Trunkmakers Street," and the fatal one "Gravers Row," says Creech, "near the Guildhall."

GENII OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. /

his pretensions appears the more extraordinary. To be sure it has been well argued, that no men are more likely to be put out of their reckoning by a sudden incur- sion of fancy or demand upon their belief, than those who are the most mechanical and matter-of-fact on all other points. They are not used to it ; and have no grounds to go upon, the moment the hardest and dryest ones are taken from under them. Plato has rendered it difficult to believe this of Socrates ; but then we have the authority of Socrates for concluding that Plato put a great deal in his head that he never uttered ; and the Socrates of Xen- ophon, we think, the practical farmer and house-keeper, might not be supposed incapable of yielding to supersti- tious delusion out of a defect of imagination. Socrates sometimes reminds us of Dr. Johnson. He was a John- son on a higher scale, healthier with more self-command ; and instead of being intemperate and repenting all his life, had conquered his passions, and turned them into graces becoming his reason. Johnson had a sturdy every-day good sense and wit and words to impress it ; but it was only persuasion in him : in Socrates it was persuasion and practice. Now Johnson had a strong tendency to be moved by superstitious impressions and perplexities from within. A sudden action of the bile, not well understood, or taken as a moral instead of a physical intimation, would give rise to some painful thoughts ; and this (which is a weakness that many temperaments given to reflection and not in perfect health, have found it necessary to guard against), would lead him into some superstitious practice, or avoidance. There is a circumstance related of him, very like this one of Socrates ; only the sedentary, diseased, dinner-loving Englishman made a gloomy business of it ; while the sturdy gymnastic Athenian, mastering the weak-

68 GENII OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.

ness of his stomach, turned the superstition on his side into an elegance and an exaltation. The fact we allude to is, that Johnson would never go down Cranbourne Alley, or some street thereabout. He always turned and went round about. Had he been gay and confident, not over- whelmed with scrofula, and with the more gloomy parts of his creed, he might have sworn as Socrates did, that it was his guardian angel that told him not to go that way. Had it been Jeremy Taylor — Jeremy the amiable and the handsome, the Sir Charles Grandison of Christianity, who, with equal comfort to his security, pronounced a pane- gyric upon a wedding ring, or a description of eternal tor- ments (so much can superstition pervert a sweet nature) — he, if he had thought he had an intimation from within, would have infallibly laid it to the account of the prettiest angel of the skies. Was it something of a like vanity in Socrates (too superior to his fellows, not to fall into some disadvantage of that sort) ? or was it an unhealthy move- ment within him happily turned ? or was it a joke which was to be taken for serious, by those who liked ? or did it arise from one of those perplexities of not knowing what to conclude, to which the greatest minds may be subject when they attain to the end of their experience, and stand between the known world and the unknown? or, lastly, was it owing (as we fear is most likely) partly to a super- stition retained from his nurse, and partly to a determina- tion to construe an occasional fancy, thus warranted, into a conscious certainty, and so turn his interest with heaven to the account of his effect among men ? Such, we fear, is the most reasonable conjecture, and such we take to be the general impression ; though with a delicacy, equally singular and creditable to them, mankind (with rare ex- ceptions) seem to have agreed to say as little about the

GENII OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. 69

matter as possible, choosing rather to give so great a man the benefit of their ignorance, than lose any part of their reverence for his wisdom. One thing must not be forgot- ten ; that this pretension to an unusual sense of his attend- ant spirit assisted in getting him into trouble. He was accused of introducing false gods, — a singular charge, which shows how much the opinion of a guardian deity had gone out of use. On the other hand, he argued (with a true look of feeling, and which must afterwards have had great effect), that it was not his fault if he beheld in omens and intimations the immediate influence of his guardian angel, and not merely the omens themselves. That he did believe in the latter somehow or other, is generally admitted.

It is not a little curious, that this is the only story of a good demon that has come down to us in the records of antiquity. Some philosophers had theirs long after- wards; but these were evident imitations. Stories of bad demons, according to the vulgar notion, are more numer- ous. Two are to be found in the life of Apollonius of Tyana. Another is in Pausanus, and a third is the fa- mous one of Brutus. These injurious persons were sel- dom however bad by nature. They become so from ill usage, being in fact, the souls of men who had been ill treated when alive.

7O GENII OF ANTIQUITY AND THE POETS.

ON THE GENII OF ANTIQUITY AND THE POETS.

HE bad demon was thought to be of formidable shape, black, frowning, and brutal. A man, according to Pausanias, fought with one, and drove him into the sea. As we have told the story before (in the " Indicator "),* and it is little to tell, we shall proceed to give the noblest passage ever written about demons, in the scene out of Shake- speare. The spirit that appeared to Brutus has been vari- ously represented. Some made it of the common order of malignant appearances ; others have described it as resem- bling Caesar. This was the light in which it was beheld by our great poet.

With what exquisite art ; that is to say, with what ex- quisite nature, has he not introduced this scene, and made us love and admire the illustrious patriot, who having done what he could upon earth, and prepared for his last effort, is about to encounter the menaces of fate. How admira- bly, by the help of the little boy and the lute, has he painted him, who was only a dictator and a warrior be- cause he was a great humanist, the Platonic philosopher in action, the ideal, yet not passionless, man, — such a one as Shakespeare loved, not because he loved only select human nature, but because he loved all that human nature contained !

We must confess, that in our opinion the address to the Ghost is not so good as in simple old Plutarch. There is too much astonishment and agitation in it ; if not for na-

* In the article on the " Household Gods of the Ancients." — ED.

GENII OF ANTIQUITY AND THE POETS. Jl

ture, at least for the superinduced and philosophic nature, that we are led to suppose was in Brutus ^ and the same objection might be made to what follows. The household are called up in too much alarm. It is Brutus's care for his servants, his bidding them take their rest, and what he says to the little lute-player, overcome with sleep, that render the scene so charming. The divine scene also be- tween him and Cassius, where he tells him that " Portia is dead," has just preceded it.

Brutus. Lucius, my gown. [Exit Lucius.] Farewell, good Messala ; Good night, Titinius : — noble, noble Cassius, Good night, and good repose.

Cassius. O, my dear brother 1 This was an ill beginning of the night : Never come such division 'tween our souls 1 Let it not, Brutus.

Bru. Every thing is well.

Cas. Good night, my lord.

Bru. Good night, good brother.

Titinius and Messala. Good night, lord Brutus.

Bru. Farewell, every one.

[Exeunt Cas., Tit., and Mes. Re-enter Lucius with the gown.

Give me the gown. Where is thy instrument ?

Lucius. Here in the tent.

Bru. What, thou speak'st drowsily?

Poor knave, I blame thee not ; thou art o'er-watched. Call Claudius, and some other of my men ; I'll have them sleep on cushions in my tent.

Luc. Varro and Claudius.

Enter VARRO and CLAUDIUS.

Varro. Calls my lord?

Bru. I pray you, sirs, lie in my fnt and sleep ; It may be, I shall raise you by and by On business to my brother Cassius.

Var. So please you, we will stand, and watch your pleasure.

Bru. I will not have it so : lie down, good sirs ;

72 GENII OF ANTIQUITY AND THE POETS.

It may be, I shall otherwise think me.

Look, Lucius, here's the book I sought for so ;

I put it itf the pocket of my gown.

Luc. I was sure, your lordship did not give it me.

Bru. Bear with me, good boy, I am much forgetful. Canst thou hold up thy heavy eyes awhile, And touch thy instrument a strain or two ?

Luc. Ay, my lord, an it please you.

Bru. It does, my boy.

I trouble thee too much, but thou art willing.

Luc. It is my duty, sir.

Bru. I should not urge thy duty past thy might ; I know young bloods look for a time of rest.

Luc. I have slept, my lord, already.

Bru. It is well done ; and thou shalt sleep again ; I will not hold thee long : if I do live, I will be good to thee.

This is a sleepy tune : — O, murderous slumber ! Lay'st thou thy leaden mace upon my boy, That plays thee music ? — Gentle knave, good night ; I will not do thee so much wrong to wake thee. If thou dost nod, thou break'st thy instrument ; I'll take it from thee ; and good boy, good night. Let me see, let me see ; is not the leaf turn'd down, Where I left reading? Here it is, I think.

Enter the GHOST of CJESAR.

How ill this taper burns 1 Ha ! who comes here ? I think it is the weakness of mine eyes, That shapes this monstrous apparition. It comes upon me : — art thou any thing ? Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil, That mak'st my blood cold, and my hair to stare ? Speak to me, what thou art.

Ghost. Thy evil spirit, Brutus.

Bru- Why com'st thou ?

Ghost. To tell thee, thou shalt see me at Philippi.

Bru. Well ; Then I shall see thee again?

Ghost. Ay, at Philippi.

Bru. Why, I will see thee at Philippi then. — Now I have taken heart, thou vanishest : 111 spirit, I would hold more talk with thee. —

[Servants lie down.

[Music and a song.

[He sits down.

[Ghost vanishes.

GENII OF ANTIQUITY AND THE POETS. 73

Boy! Lucius! Varro ! Claudius! sirs awake! — Claudius !

Luc. The strings, my lord, are false.

Bru. He thinks, he is still at his instrument — Lucius, awake.

Luc. My lord?

Bru. Didst thou dream that thou so cry'dst out ?

Luc. My lord, I do not know that I did cry.

Bru. Yes, that thou didst ; didst thou see any thing?

Luc. Nothing, my lord.

Bru. Sleep again, Lucius. — Sirrah, Claudius ! Fellow thou! awake.

Var. My lord.

Clau. My lord.

Bru. Why did you so cry out, sirs, in your sleep ?

Var. and Clau. Did we, my lord ?

Bru. Ay: saw you any thing ?

Var. No, my lord, I saw nothing.

Clau. Nor I, my lord.

Bru. Go, and commend me to my brother Cassius ; Bid him set on his powers betimes before ; And we will follow.

Var. and Clau. It shall be done, my lord. {.Exeunt.

The Roman genius appears to have been a very mate- rial sort of personage compared with the Greek demon, and altogether addicted to earth. We know not where it is found that he was first called gerulus, or a carrier on of affairs : perhaps in Varro ; but whether as gerulus, or as genius (the spirit of things generated), the Romans made him after their own likeness, and gave him as little to do with the stars as possible. The Romans had not the fancy of the Greeks, and cared little for their ethereal pleasures. Accordingly, their attendant spirit was either fighting and conquering (on which occasion he took the wings of victory, as you may see in the imperial sculp- tures), or he was dining and enjoying himself: sitting under his plane-tree and drinking with his mistress. To

74 GENII OF ANTIQUITY AND THE POETS.

gratify their appetites, was called " indulging the genius ;" not to gratify them, was "defrauding" him. They seem to have forgotten that he had any thing to do with re- straint. Ovid, the most poetical of their poets, in all his uses of the words genius or genii, never hints at the pos- sibility of their having any meaning beyond something local and comfortable. There is the genius of the city, and the genius of one's father. The Sabine women were " a genial prey." Crowns of flowers are genial ; a certain kind of musical instrument is particularly genial, and agrees with dulcibus jocis, — that is to say, with double meanings ; Bacchus is the planter of the genial vine (gen- ial indeed was a name of Bacchus) ; a popular holiday, pleasantly described in the Fasti, where every one is eat- ing and drinking by the side of his lass, is a genial feast*

Hence the acceptation of the word among ourselves, though we are fain to give it more grace and sentiment. The "genial bed" of Milton is not exactly Ovidian; though, by the way, the good-natured libertine was the favorite Latin poet of our great puritan.

We hear little of the bad genius among the Romans. They seem to have agreed to treat him as bad geniuses ought to be, and drop his acquaintance. But he was black, like his brother in Greece. Voltaire has a pleasant story of the black and white genius. Valerius Maximus, a ser- vile writer, who had the luck to survive his betters and become a classic, tells a story (probably to please the men in power whom he deified) which appears to have been confounded with that of Brutus. " We are told by Vale- rius Maximus," says Mr. Tooke, " that when Cassius fled

1 " Fastorum," lib. iii. v. 523. It is the description of a modern Florentine holiday.

GENII OF ANTIQUITY AND THE POETS. 75

to Athens, after Anthony was beaten at Actium, there ap- peared to him a man of long stature, of a black swarthy complexion, with large hair, and a nasty beard. Cassius asked him who he was ; and the apparition answered, ' I am your evil genius.' " *

Spenser has placed an evil genius at the gate of his false bower of bliss, and old genius, or the fatherly principle of life and care, at the door of the great nursery-gardens of the universe.

Old genius the porter of them was ;

Old genius, the which a double nature has.

He letteth in, he letteth out to wend, All that to come into this world desire ; A thousand thousand naked babes attend About him day and night, which do require That he with fleshly weeds would them attire.

What follows and precedes this passage is a true piece of Platonical coloring, founded upon the old Greek alle- gories. These nursery grounds, sprouting with infants and with the germs of all things, would make a very happy place if it were not for Time, who with his " flaggy wings," goes playing the devil among the beds, to the great regret of Venus. It is an old story, and a true ; and the worst of it is, that Venus herself (though the poet does not here say so) joins with her enemies to assist him.

Were it not that Time their troubler is,

All that in this delightful gardin growes Should happy been, and have immortal bliss : For here all plenty and all pleasure flowes ; And swete Love gentle fitts among them throwes, Without fell rancour or fond gealosy :

* Tooke's " Pantheon," part 4, chap. iii. sect. 4. The genius speaks Greek, which was better bred of him than having a beard.

76 GENII OF ANTIQUITY AND THE POETS.

Franckly each paramour his leman knowes ; Each bird his mate ; ne any does envy Their goodly meriment and gay felicity.

There is continual spring, and harvest there Continuall, both meeting at one tyme : For both the boughes doe laughing blossoms beare, And with fresh colours decke the wanton pryme, And eke attonce the heavy trees they clyme, Which seeme to labour under their fruites lode : The whyles the joyous birdes make their pastyme Emongst the shady leaves, their sweet abode,

And their trew loves without suspicion tell abrode.

We are then presented with one of his arbors, of which he was the cunningest builder in all fairy-land. The pres- ent one belongs to Venus and Adonis.

Right in the middest of that Paradise There stood a stately mount, on whose round top A gloomy grove of mirtle trees did rise, Whose shady boughes sharp steele did never lop, Nor wicked beastes their tender buds did crop, But like a girlond compassed the hight, And from their fruitfull sydes sweet gum did drop, That all the ground, with pretious deaw bedight,

Threw forth most dainty odours and most sweet delight.

And in the thickest covert of that shade

There was a pleasant arber, not by art

But of the trees own inclination made,

Which knitting their rancke braunches part to part,

With wanton yvie-twine entrayled athwart,

And eglantine and caprifole emong,

Fashion'd above within their inmost part,

That neither Phoebus beams could through them throng, Nor vEolus sharp blast could worke them any wrong.

FAIRY QUEENE, Book III. Canto vi.

Here Venus was wont to enjoy the company of Adonis ; " Adonis," says Upton, " being matter, and Venus, form."

GENII OF ANTIQUITY AND THE POETS. 77

Ovid would have said, " he did not know how that might be, but that the allegory 'was genial.' "

The poets are a kind of eclectic philosophers, who pick out of theories whatever is suitable to the truth of natural feeling and the candor of experience ; and thus, with due allowances for what is taught them, may be looked upon as among the truest as well as most universal of philoso- phers. The most opinionate of them, Milton for one, are continually surrendering the notions induced upon them by their age or country, to the cause of their greater mother- country, the universe ; like beings deeply sympathizing with man, but impatient of wearing the clothes and cus- toms of a particular generation. It is doubtful, consider- ing the whole context of Milton's life, and taking away the excitements of personal feelings, whether he was a jot more in earnest when playing the polemic, than in giving himself up to the dreams of Plato ; whether he felt more, or so much, in common with Raphael and Michael, as with the genius of the groves of Harefield, listening at night-time to the music of the spheres. In one of his prose works (we quote from memory) he complains of being forced into public brawls and " hoarse seas of dis- pute ; " and asks, what but a sense of duty could have enabled him thus to have been " put off from beholding the bright countenance of Truth in the quiet and still air of de- lightful studies." This truth was truth universal ; this air, the same that haunted the room of Plato, and came breath- ing from Elysium. No man had a greater taste than he for the "religio loci," — the genius of a particular spot. The genius of a wood in particular, was a special friend of his, as indeed he has been of all poets. The following ^;ige has been often quoted ; but we must not on that account pass it by. New beauties may be found in it every

78 GENII OF ANTIQUITY AND THE POETS.

time. A passage in a wood has been often trod, but we tread it again. The pleasure is ever young, though the path is old. So —

When the sun begins to fling

His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring

To arched walks of twilight groves,

And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,

Of pine or monumental oak,

Where the rude axe with heaved stroke,

Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,

Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt.

There in close covert by some brook,

Where no profaner eye may look,

Hide me from day's garish eye,

While the bee with honied thigh,

That at her flowery work doth sing,

And the waters murmuring,

With such consort as they keep,

Entice the dewy-feather 'd sleep ;

And let some strange mysterious dream

Wave at his wings in aery stream

Of lively portraiture display' d,

Softly on my eye-lids laid.

And as I wake, sweet music breathe

Above, about, or underneath,

Sent by some spirit to mortals good,

Or the unseen genius of the wood.

PENSEROSO.

In the Arcades, a Marque performed at Harefield before the Countess of Derby, one of these genii makes his appearance. Two noble shepherds coming forward are met by the " genius of the wood." We will close our article with him as a proper harmonious personage, who unites the spirit of the Greek and Roman demonology. He need not have troubled himself, perhaps, with "curl- ing" the groves ; and his "tasseFd" horn is a little fine and particular, — not remote enough or audible. But the

GENII OF ANTIQUITY AND THE POETS. 79

young poet was writing to please young patricians. The " tassel " was for their nobility ; the rest is for his own.

Stay, gentle swains ; for though in this disguise, I see bright honour sparkle through your eyes ; Of famous Arcady ye are, and sprung Of that renowned flood, so often sung, Divine Alpheus, who by secret sluce Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse ; And ye, the breathing roses of the wood, Fair silver-buskined nymphs, as great and good ; I know, this quest of yours, and free intent, Was all in honour and devotion meant To the great mistress of yon princely shrine, Whom with low reverence I adore as mine ; And, with all helpful service, will comply To further this night's glad solemnity ; And lead ye, where ye may more near behold What shallow-searching fame hath left untold ; Which I full oft, amidst these shades alone, Have sat to wonder at, and gaze upon ; For know, by lot from Jove, I am the power Of this fair wood, and live in oaken bower, To nurse the saplings tall, and curl the grove With ringlets quaint, and wanton windings wove. And all my plants I save from nightly ill Of noisome winds, and blasting vapours chill ; And from the boughs brush off the evil dew, And heal the harms of thwarting thunder blue, Or what the cross dire-looking planet smites, Or hurtful worm with canker'd venom bites. When evening gray doth rise, I fetch my round Over the mount and all this hallow' d ground ; And early, ere the odorous breath of morn Awakes the slumbering leaves, or tassel'd horn Shakes the high thicket, haste I all about, Number my ranks, and visit every sprout With puissant words, and murmurs made to bless. But else in deep of night, when drowsiness Hath lock'd up mortal sense, then listen I To the celestial Syrens' harmony, That sit upon the nine infolded spheres, And sing to those that hold the vital shears,

80 GENII OF ANTIQUITY AND THE POETS.

And turn the adamantine spindle round, On which the fate of gods and men is wound. Such sweet compulsion doth in musick lie, To lull the daughters of necessity.

This is a passage to read at twilight ; or before put- ting out the candles, in some old country house.

There is yet one more passage which we must quote from Milton, about a genius. It concerns also a very de- moniacal circumstance, the cessation of the heathen ora- cles. See with what regret the poet breaks up the haunt of his winged beauties, and sends them floating away into dissolution with their white bodies out of the woods.

The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance, or breathed spell, Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetick cell.

The lonely mountains o'er, And the resounding shore,

A voice of weeping heard and loud lament ; From haunted spring and dale, Edg'd with poplar pale,

The parting Genius is with sighing sent : With flower-inwoven tresses torn The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn

In consecrated earth, And on the holy hearth,

The Lars, and Lemures, mourn with midnight plaint ; In urns, and altars round, A drear and dying sound

Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint ; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat

FAIRIES. 8 1

He proceeds to dismiss the idols of Palestine, and the brute gods of Egypt,

Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud.

We do not feel for those, nor does he ; but the little household gods of Rome, trembling like kittens on the hearth, and the nymphs of Greece mourning their flowery shades, he loses with an air of tenderness. He forgets that he and the other poets had gathered them into their own Elysium.

FAIRIES. I.

HE word/tfzVj', in the sense of a little minia- ture being, is peculiar to this country, and is a southern appellation applied to a northern idea. It is the fee and fata of the French and Italians ; who mean by it an imaginary lady of any sort, not of necessity small and generally of the human size. With us, it is the elf of our northern an- cestors, and means exclusively the little creature inhabit- ing the woods and caverns, and dancing on the grass.

The progress of knowledge, which humanizes every- thing, and enables our fancies to pick and choose, has long rendered the English fairy a harmless being, rarely seen of eye and known quite as much, if not more, through the pleasant fancies of the poets, than the earthier creed of the common people. In Germany, also, the fairy is said to have become a being almost entirely benevolent. But 6

82 FAIRIES.

among our kinsmen of the North, the Swedes and Danes, and especially the insular races of Iceland and Rugen, the old opinions appear to be in force ; and, generally speaking, the pigmy world may be divided into four classes.

First, the white or good fairies, who live above ground, I dancing on the grass, or sitting on the leaves of trees — | the fairy of our poets. They are fond of sunshine, and j are ethereal little creatures.

1 Second,, the dark or under-ground fairies (the dwarfs, \ trolls, and hill-folk of the continent), an irritable race, workers in mines and smithies, and doing good or evil offices, as it may happen.

Third, the house or homestead fairy, our Puck, Rob- in Goodfellow, Hobgoblin, &c. (the Nis of Denmark and Norway, the koboldvt Germany, the brownie of Scotland, and tomtegubbe, or old man of the house in Sweden). He is of a similar temper, but good upon the whole, and fond of cleanliness, rewarding and helping the servants i for being tidy, and punishing them for the reverse.

And fourth, the water fairy, the kelpie of Scotland, and Nick, Neck, Nickel, Nickar, and Nix, of other countries, the most dangerous of all, appearing like a horse, or a mermaid, or a beautiful girl, and enticing people to their destruction. He is supposed by some, however, not to do it out of ill will, but in order to procure companions in the spirits of those who are . drowned.

All the fairies have qualities in common ; and for the most part, eat, drink, marry, and are governed like human beings ; and all without exception are thieves, and fond of power. In other words, they are like the human beings that invented them. They do the same good and ill of-

FAIRIES. 83

fices, are subject to the same passions, and are called guid folk and good neighbors, out of the same feelings of fear or gratitude. The better sort dress in gay clothes of green, and are handsome ; the more equivocal are ugly, big- nosed little knaves, round-eyed and humpbacked, like Punch, or the figures in caricatures. The latter dress in red or brown caps, which they have a great dread of los- ing, as they must not rest till they get another ; and the hill-folk among them are great enemies to noise. They keep their promises, because if they did not, the Rugen people say they would be changed into reptiles, beetles, and other ugly creatures, and be obliged to wander in that shape many years. The ordinary German kobold, or house goblin, delights in a mess of grits or water-gruel, with a lump of butter in it. In other countries, as in England of old, he aspires to a cream bowl. Hear our great poet, who was as fond of a rustic supper as any man, and has recorded his roasting chestnuts with his friend Diodati.

Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,

With stories told of many a feat,

How fairy Mab the junkets eat ;

She was pinch'cl and pull'd, she sed ;

And he, by friar's lantern led ;

Tells how the drudging Goblin swet,

To earn his cream-bowl duly set,

When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,

His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn,

That ten day-laborers could not end ;

Then lies him down the lubbar fiend,

And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length,

Basks at the fire his hairy strength ;

And crop full out of doors he flings,

Ere the first cock his matin rings.

Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,

By whispering winds soon lull'd asleep.

84 FAIRIES.

This gigantifying of Robin Goodfellow is a sin against the true fairy religion ; but a poet's sins are apt to be too agreeable not to be forgiven.* The friar with his lantern, is the same Robin, whose pranks he delighted to record even amidst the stately solemnities of Paradise Lost, — philosophizing upon the nature of the ignis fatuus, that he might have an excuse for bringing him in.

Lead then, said Eve. He, leading, swiftly roll'd In tangles, and made intricate seem straight, To mischief swift. Hope elevates, and joy Brightens his crest ; as when a wandering fire, Compact of unctuous vapor, which the night Condenses, and the cold environs round, Kindled through agitation to a flame, Which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends, Hovering and blazing with delusive light, Misleads the amaz'd night-wanderer from his way To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool ; There swallow'd up and lost, from succor far. So glister'd the dire Snake.

^ We have remarked more than once, that the belief in supernatural existences round about us is indigenous to every country,- and as natural as fears and hopes. Cli-

* " Robin Goodfellow," says Warton, "who is here made a gigantic spirit, fond of lying before the fire, and called the lubbar fiend, seems to be con- founded with the sleepy giant mentioned in Beaumont and Fletcher's ' Knight of the Burning Pestle,' Act iii, Sc. I. vol. vi. p. 411, edit. 1751." There is a pretty tale of a witch that had the devil's mark about her, God bless us, that had a giant to her son that was called " Lob-lye-by-the-fire." Todd's Milton, vol. vi. p. 96. Burton in a passage subsequently quoted, tells us in speaking of these fairies, that there is "a bigger kind of them, called with us Hobgoblins and Robin Goodfellows, that would in those superstitious times grinde come for a messe of milke, cut wood, or do any manner of drudgery worke." Me- lanch. part i. sec. 2, p. 42, edit. 1632. The bigness arose probably out of the superhuman labor; but, though Milton has made fine use of the lubbar fiend with his " hairy strength," it is surprising he should have sacrificed the greater wonder of the little potent fairy to that of a giant.

FAIRIES. 85

mate and national character modify it ; parts of it may be borrowed ; a people may abound in it at one time, and outgrow the abuse of it in another : but wherever human nature is to be found, either in a state of superstitious ig- norance, or imaginative knowledge, there the belief will ; be found with it, modified accordingly.

We shall not trouble ourselves, therefore, with attempt- ing to confine the origin of the fairies to this or that region. A bird, a squirrel, a voice, a tree nodding and gesticulating in the wind, was sufficient to people every one of them with imaginary beings. But creeds may oust creeds or alter them, as invaders alter a people ; and there are two circumstances in the nature of the popular fairy, assignable to that northern mythology, to which the be- lief itself has been traced ; we mean the smallness of its stature, and the supposition at one time prevailing, that it was little better than a devil. It is remarkable, also, that inasmuch as the northern mythology is traceable to the Eastern invaders of Europe, our fairies may have issued out of those same mountains of Caucasus, the great Kaf, to which we are indebted for the Peries and Genii. The Pygmies were supposed by the ancients to people the two ends of the earth, northern and southern, where the growth of nature was faint and stunted. In the north they were inhabitants of India, the cranes their enemies being Scythians : in the other quarters, they were found by Hercules in the desert. where they assailed him with their bows and arrows, as the Lilliputians did Gulliver, and were carried off by the smiling demigod, in the skin of his lion. Odin, the supposed Scythian or Tartar, is thought to have been the importer of the northern fables. His wandering countrymen of the crane region, may have a nigher personal acquaintance with the little people of

86 FAIRIES.

the North, than is supposed. In the tales now extant among the Calmuc Tartars, and originating it seems in Thibet, mention is made of certain little children encoun- tered by a wandering Khan in a wood, and quarrelling about " an invisible cup." The Khan tricks them of it in good swindling style; and proceeding onwards meets with certain Tchadkurs or evil spirits, quarrelling about some " boots of swiftness," of which he beguiles them in like manner.*

These may be chance coincidences ; but these fictions are not of so universal a nature as most ; and we cannot help regarding them as corroborations of the Eastern rise of our fablers of the North. We take this opportunity, before we proceed, of noticing another remarkable circum- stance in the history of popular fictions ; which is, that it is doubtful whether the Greeks had any little beings in their mythology. They regarded the Pygmies as a real people, and never seem to have thought of giving them a lift into the supernatural. And it may be observed, that although the Spaniards have a house-spirit which they call Duende, and Tasso, in the fever of his dungeon, was haunted with a Folletto, which is the Follet or L^lt^n of the French, it does not appear that these southern spirits are of necessity small ; still less have those sunny nations any embodied system of fairyism. Their fairies are the

* See an excellent article in the " Quarterly Review," entitled " Antiquities of Nursery Literature." Of similar merit and probably by the same hand (which we presume to be that of Mr. Southey) is another on the popular my- thology of the Middle Ages. We cannot refer to the volume, our copy happen- ing to form part of a selection which we made some years ago from a bundle of the two reigning Reviews. [These articles are in volumes 21 and 22, of the "Quarterly Review." They were not written by Southey, at least they are not in the list of his contributions to the " Review " published in his biography. ED.]

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enchantresses of romance. Little spirits appear to be of the country of little people, commented on by their larger neighbors. It is true that little shapes and shadows are seen in all countries ; but the general tendency of fear is to magnify. Particular circumstances must have created a spirit at once petty and formidable.

We are of opinion with the author of the " Fairy My- thology," that the petty size of the haunted idols of antiq- uity argues nothing conclusive respecting the size of the beings they represented. Besides, they were often large as well as small, though the more domestic of them, or those that immediately presided over the hearth, were of a size suitable to convenience. The domestic idols of all nations have probably been small, for the like reason.

Whether the Lares were supposed to be of greater stat- ure or not by the learned, it is not impossible that the constant sight of the little images generated a correspond- ing notion of the originals. The best argument against the smallness of these divinities is, that there is no men- tion of it in books ; and yet the only passage we remem- ber to have met with, implying any determinate notion of stature, is in favor of the little. We here give it out of an old and not very sage author.

" After the victory had and gotten against the Gethes, the Emperor Domitian caused many shewes and triumphs to be made, in signe and token of joy ; and amongst others hee invited publickly to dine with him, all sorts of persons, both noble and unnoble, but especially the Senators and Knights of Rome, to whom he made a feast in this fashion. Hee had caused a certaine house of al sides to bee painted black, the pavement thereof was black, so likewise were the hangings, or seelings, the roofe and the wals also black ; and within it hee had prepared a very low room,

88 FAIRIES.

not unlike a hollow vault or cell, ful of emptie sledges or seats. Into this place he caused the Senators and Knights, his ghests, to be brought, without suffering any of their pages or attendants to enter in with them. And first of all he caused a little square piller to be set near to every one of them, upon the which was written the partie's name sitting next it ; by which there hanged also a lamp burn- ing before each seat, in such sort as is used in sepulchers. After this, there comes into this melancholicke and dark place a number of yong pages, with great joy and merri- ment, starke naked, and spotted or painted all over with a die or colour as blacke as inke : who, resembling these spirits called Manes, and such like idols, did leape and skip round about those Senators and Knights, who, at this unexpected accident, were not a little frighted and afraid. After which, those pages set them down at their feete, against each of them one, and there stayed, whilste certaine other persons (ordayned there of purpose) did execute with great solemnity all those ceremonies that were usually fit and requisit at the funeralls and exequies of the dead. This done, there came in others, who brought and served in, in black dishes and platters, divers meats and viands, all coloured black, in such sort that there was not any one in the place but was in great doubt what would become of him, and thought himself utterly undone, supposing he should have his throat cut, onely to give pleasure and content to the Emperour. Besides, there was kept the greatest silence that could be imagined. And Domitian himself being present, did nothing else but (without ceasing) speake and talke unto them of murthers, death and tragedies. In the end, the Emperour having taken his pleasure of them at the full, he caused their pages and lackies, which attended them without the gates,

FAIRIES. 89

to come in unto them, and so sent them away home to their own houses, some in coches, others in horselitters, guided and conducted by strange and unknown persons, which gave them as great cause of fear as their former entertainment. And they were no sooner arrived every- one to his own house, and had scant taken breath from the feare they had conceived, but that one of their ser- vants came to tell them, that there were at the gates cer- taine which came to speake with them from the Emperour. God knows how this message made them stirre, what ex- cessive lamentations they made, and with how exceeding feares they were perplexed in their minds ; there was not any, no, not the hardiest of them all, but thought that hee was sent for to be put to death. But to make short, those which were to speake with them from the Emperour, came to no other purpose but to bring them either a little piller of silver, or some such like vessel or piece of plate (which had beene set before them at the time of their entertain- ment) ; after which, everyone of them had also sent unto him, for a present from the Emperour, one of those pages that had counterfeyted those Manes or Spirits at the ban- quet, they being first washed and cleansed before they were presented unto them."

Spirits of old could become small ; but we read of none that were essentially little except the fairies. It was a Rabbinical notion, that angelical beings could render themselves as small as they pleased ; a fancy of which Milton has not scrupled to avail himself in his Pande- monium.* It was proper enough to the idea of a being

* Milton's reduction of the size of his angels is surely a superfluity, and diminishes the grandeur of their meeting. It was one of the rare instances (theology apart) in which his learning betrayed his judgment.

90 FAIRIES.

made of thought or fire ; though one would think it was easier to make it expand like the genius when let loose, than be contracted into the jar or vial in the first instance. But if spirits went in and out of crevices, means, it was thought, must be taken to enable them to do so ; and this may serve to account for the Fairies themselves, in coun- tries where other circumstances disposed the fancy to create them : but all the attributes of the little northern being, its petty stature, its workmanship, its superiority to men in some things, its simplicity and inferiority in others, its supernatural practices, and the doubt entertained by its believers whether it is in the way of salvation, conspire, we think, to render the opinion of M. Mallet, in his " Northern Antiquities," extremely probable ; viz., that the character of the fairy has been modified by the feel- ings entertained by our Gothic and Celtic ancestors re- specting the little race of the Laplanders, a people whom they despised for their timid peacefulness, and yet could not help admiring for their industry, and fearing for their magic.

In the " Edda," or northern " Pantheon," the dwarfs are described as a species of beings bred in the dust of the earth, like maggots in a carcase. " It was indeed," says the Edda, "in the body of the Giant Ymer, that they were engendered and first began to move and live. At first they were only worms ; but by order of the gods they at length partook both of human shape and reason ; nev- ertheless, they always dwell in subterranean caverns and among rocks."

Upon this passage, M. Mallet says (under correction of his translator), "We may discover here one of the effects of that ignorant prejudice, which hath made us for so many years regard all arts and handicrafts as the occu-

FAIRIES. 91

pation of mean people and slaves. Our Celtic and Gothic ancestors, whether Germans, Scandinavians, or Gauls, imagining there was something magical, and beyond the reach of man in mechanic skill and industry, could scarcely believe that an able artist was one of their own species, or descended from the same common origin. This, it must be granted, was a very foolish conceit ; but let us consider what might possibly facilitate the entrance of it in their minds. There was perhaps some neighboring people, which bordered upon the Celtic or Gothic tribes ; and which, although less warlike than themselves, and much inferior in strength and stature, might yet excel them in dexterity; and addicting themselves to the manual arts, might carry on commerce with them, sufficiently extensive to have the fame of it spread pretty far. All these circum- stances will agree well enough with the Laplanders, who are still as famous for their magic, as remarkable for the lowness of their stature ; pacific even to a degree of cow- ardice, but of a mechanic industry which formerly must have appeared very considerable. The stories that were invented concerning this people, passing through the mouths of so many ignorant relators, would soon acquire all the degrees of the marvellous of which they were sus- ceptible. Thus the dwarfs soon became (as all know, who have dipped but a little into the ancient romances) the forg- ers of enchanted armor, upon which neither swords nor conjurations could make any impression. They were pos- sessed of caverns full of treasure, entirely at their own disposal. This, to observe by the bye, hath given birth to one of the cabalistic doctrines, which is perhaps only one of the branches of the ancient northern theology. As the dwarfs were feeble, and but of small courage, they were supposed to be crafty, full of artifice and deceit. This,

92 FAIRIES.

which in the old romances is called disloyalty, is the char- acter always given of them in those fabulous narratives. All these fancies having received the seal of time and universal consent, could be no longer contested, and it was the business of the poets to assign a fit origin for such ungracious beings. This was done in their pretended rise from the dead carcase of a great giant. The dwarfs at first were only the maggots, engendered by its putre- faction : afterwards the gods bestowed upon them under- standing and cunning. By this fiction the northern warriors justified their contempt of them ; and at the same time accounted for their small stature, their industry, and for their supposed propensity for inhabiting caves and clefts of the rocks. After all, the notion is not everywhere exploded, that there are in the bowels of the earth Fairies, or a kind of dwarfish and tiny beings, of human shape, remarkable for their riches, their industry, and their ma- levolence. In many countries of the North, the people are still firmly persuaded of their existence. In Ireland, at this day, the good folks show the very rocks and hills, in which they maintain that there are swarms of these small subterranean men, of the most tiny size, but most delicate figures."

^ When Christianity came into the North, these little

J people, who had formed part of the national faith, were

• converted by the ordinary process into devils ; but the

{ converts could never heartily enter into the notion. Ac-

I cordingly, in spite of the endeavors of the clergy (which it

is said, have been more or less exerted in vain to this day),

a sort of half-and-half case was made out for them ; and

the inhabitants of several northern countries are still of

opinion that elves may be saved, and that it is cruel to tell

them otherwise. An author, quoted in the " Fairy Mythol-

FAIRIES. 93

ogy " (vol. i. p. 136), has a touching theory on this subject. We are informed in that work, " that the common people of Sweden and thereabouts believe in an intermediate class of elves who, when they show themselves, have a handsome human form, and the idea of whom is connected with a deep feeling of melancholy, as if bewailing a half- quenched hope of redemption." — " Afzelius is of opinion," says a note on the passage, " that the superstition on this point is derived from the time of the introduction of Chris- tianity into the North ; and expresses the sympathy of the first converts with their forefathers, who died without a knowledge of the Redeemer, and lay bound in heathen earth, and whose unhappy spirits were doomed to wander about these lower regions, or sigh within their mounds, till the great day of redemption."

Our old prose writers scarcely ever mention the Fairies without letting us see how they were confounded with devils, and yet distinguished from them. " Terrestrial devils," says Burton, "are those Lares, Genii, Faunes, Satyrs, Wood-nymphs, Foliots, Fairies, Robin Good- fellows^ &c., which as they are most conversant with men, so they do them the most harm. Some think it was they alone that kept the heathen people in awe of old, and had so many idols and temples erected to them. Of this range was Dagon amongst the Philistines, Bel amongst the Babylonians, Astarte amongst the Sidonians, Baal amongst the Samaritans, Isis and Osiris amongst the Egyptians, &c. Some put our Fairies into this rank, which have been in former times adored with much superstition ; with sweeping their houses, and setting of a pail of water, good victuals, and the like ; and then they should not be pinched, but find money in their shoes, and be for- tunate in their enterprises. These are they that dance

94 FAIRIES.

on heaths and greens, as Lavater thinks with Tritemius, and as Olaus Magnus adds, leave that green circle which commonly we find in plains and fields, which others hold to proceed from a meteor falling, or some accidental rank- ness of the ground, so Nature sports herself; they are sometimes seen by old women and children. Hierom Pauli in his description of the city of Bercino (in Spain), relates how they have been familiarly seen near that town, about fountains and hills. Giraldus Cambrensis gives instance in a monk in Wales that was so deluded. Para- celsus reckons up many places in Germany, where they do usually walk in little courts some two feet long."

" Our mothers' maids have so frayed us," says gallant Reginald Scot, " with Bui-beggars, Spirits, Witches, Ur- chens, Elves, Hags, Fairies, Satyrs, Pans, Fauns, Syrens, Kit with the Canstick, Tritons, Centaurs, Dwarfs, Giants, Imps, Calcars, Conjurors, Nymphs, Changelings, Incubus, Robin Goodfellows, the Spoon, the Mare, the Man in the Oak, the -Helwain, the Fire-drake, the Puckle, Tom Thumb, Hobgoblin, Tom Tumbler, Boneless,* and other such Bugs, that we are afraid of our own shadows : inso- much that some never fear the devil but in a dark night ;

* There is a personage in Eastern history, who appears to have been of kin to this grim phenomenon. He was a sorcerer of the name of Setteiah. He is described as having his head in his bosom, and as being destitute of bone in every part of his body, with the exception of his skull and the ends of his fingers. It was only when he was in a rage that he could sit up, anger having the effect of swelling him ; but he could at no time be made to stand on his feet. When it was necessary to move him from place to place, they folded him like a mantle ; and when there was occasion to consult him in the exercise of his profession, it was the practice to roll him backwards and forwards on the floor, like a churning skin, till the answer was obtained. See Major Price's " Essay towards the History of Arabia, antecedent to the birth of Moham- med," p. 196.

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and then a polled sheep is a perilous beast, and many times is taken for our father's soul, especially in a churchyard, where a right hardy man heretofore scant durst pass by night but his hair would stand upright." *

In consequence of this opinion in the popular Mythol- ogy, the merry and human-like Fairies during a degrading portion of the history of Europe, were made tools of, in common with all that was thought diabolical, to worry and destroy thousands of miserable people ; but it is more than pleasant, — it is deeply interesting to an observer, to see what an instinctive impulse there is in human beings to resist the growth of the worst part of superstition, and vin- dicate nature and natural piety. Do but save mankind from taking intolerance for God's will, and exalting the impa- tience of being differed with into a madness, and you may trust to the natural good humor of the best of their opinions, for as favorable a view as possible of all with which they can sympathize. Even their madness in that respect is but a perversion of their natural wish to be liked and agreed with. The first thing that men found out in behalf of the Fairies, was that they were a good deal like them- selves ; the next was to think well of them upon the whole, rather than ill ; and when Reginald Scot and others helped us out of this cloud of folly about witchcraft, the Fairies became brighter than before. In England the darker notions of them almost entirely disappeared with the big-

* The list of the unclean spirits in Middleton's tragicomedy of the " Witch," is closely copied from the passage in Reginald Scot. — See the Speech of Hecate.

Urchins, elves, hags, satires, pans, fauns, silence. Kit with the candlestick ; tritons, centaurs, dwarfs, imps. The spoon, the mare, the man i' th' oak, the hellwain, the fire-drake, the puckle.

96 FAIRIES.

otries in Church and State ; and at the call of the poets, they came and adorned the books that had done them service, and became synonymous with pleasant fancies.

II.

IT may be agreeable to follow up the growth of this good-humored light in something like chronological order. The old romances began it. Oberon, the beautiful and beneficent, afterwards king of the Fairies, made his appear- ance very early. He is the Elberich, or Rich Elf, of the Germans, and became Oberon, with a French termination, in the romance of " Huon de Bourdeaux." The general reader is well acquainted with him through the abridg- ment of the work by the Count de Tressan, and the Oberon of Wieland, translated by Mr. Sotheby. He is a tiny creature, in the likeness of a beautiful child, with a face of exceeding loveliness ; and wears a crown of jewels. His cap of invisibility, common to all the Fairies (which is the reason why they must not lose it), became famous as the Tarn-Kappe, or Daring Cap, otherwise called the Nebel or Mist-Cap, and the Tarn-hut, or Hat of Daring.* In the poem of the German Voltaire, he possesses the horn which sets everybody dancing. He and his brother dwarfs, of the Northern Mythology, are the undoubted

* " Tarn, from taren, to dare (says Dobenell), because they gave courage along with invisibility. Kappe is properly a cloak, though the tarn-kappe or nebel-kappe is generally represented as a cap or hat." — Fairy Mythology, vol. ii. p. 4. Perhaps the word cape, which may include something both ol cap and cloak, might settle their apparent contradiction. Hood implies both ; and the goblin is sometimes called Robin Hood, and Hoodekin.

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ancestors of the fallen but illustrious family of the Tom Thumbs, who became sons of tailors and victims of cows. Of the same stock are the Tom Hickathrifts and Jack the Giant Killer, if, indeed, they be not the gods themselves, merged into the Christian children of their former worship- pers. Their horrible coats, caps of knowledge, swords of sharpness, and shoes of swiftness, are, as the " Quarterly Reviewer " observes, " all out of the great heathen treasu- ry." Thumb looks like an Avatarkin, or little incarnation of Thor. Thor was the stoutest of the gods, but then the gods were little fellows in stature, compared with the giants. In a chapter of the " Edda," from which the re- viewer has given an amusing extract, the giant Skrymner rallies Thor upon his pretensions and size, and calls him " the little man." * As the god, nevertheless, was more than a match for these lubbers of the skies, his worship- pers might have respected the name in honor of him ; a panegyrical raillery not unknown to other mythologies, nor unpractised towards the " gods of the earth." f The

* In the agreeable learning which the reviewer has brought to bear on this subject, in the " Antiquities of Nursery Literature," he has deprived us of our old friend the Giant Cormoran, who turns out to be a mistake of the printer's devil for Corinoran, " the Corinasus, probably, of Jeffery of Monmouth and the Brut." However, a printer's devil has a right to speak to this point ; and we cannot help thinking that Cormoran ought to be the word, both on ac- count of the devouring magnitude of the sound, and its suitability to the brazen tromp of a Cornish mouth —

" Here's the valiant Cornish man, Who slew the giant Cormoran."

Abraham Cann or Polkinghorn ought to speak it ; or the descendants of the Danish hero Kolson, who have ora rotunda in that quarter.

t " Little Will, the scourge of France, No godhead but the first of men ; " —

7

98 FAIRIES.

West of England, it may be observed, is a great Fairy country, though even the miners and their natural dark- ness have not been able to obscure the sunnier notions of Fairy-land, now prevailing in that quarter as much as any. The Devonshire Pixies or Pucksies are the reigning elves, and are among the gayest and most good-humored to be met with. Mr. Coleridge, in his juvenile poems, has put some verses into their mouths, not among his best, but such as he may have been reasonably loth to part with. The sea-air which he breathed at a distance, and " the Pixies' Parlour " (a grotto of the roots of trees, in which he found his name carved by the hands of his childhood), were proper nurseries for the author of the " Ancient Mariner."

Chaucer's notion of Fairies was a confused mixture of elves and romance-ladies, and Ovid, and the Catholic diablerie. We had taken his fairies for the regular little dancers on the green (induced byji line of his to that eifect in the following passage) ; but the author of the " Fairy Mythology " has led us to form a different opinion. The truth is, that a book in Chaucer's time was a book, and everything to be found in those rare authorities became a sort of equal religion in the eyes of the student. Chaucer, in one of his verses, has brought together three such names as never met, perhaps, before or since, — "Samson, Turnus, and Socrates." He calls Ovid's Epistles " The Saint's Legends of Cupid." Seneca and St. Paul are the same grave authorities in his eyes ; in short, whatever was written was a scripture : something clerkly, and what

says Prior, speaking of William the sd, and rebuking, at the same time, Boi- leau's deifications of Louis. So Frederick or Napoleon, or both, were called by their soldiers " the Little Corporal."

FAIRIES. 99

a monk ought to have written if he could. His Lady Ab- bess wears a brooch exhibiting a motto out of Virgil. Elves, therefore, and Provencal Enchantresses, and the nymphs of the Metamorphoses, and the very devils of the Pope and St. Anthony, were all fellows well met, all supernatural beings, living in the same remote regions of fancy, and exciting the gratitude of the poet. He is angry with the friars for making more solemn distinctions, and displacing the little elves in their walks ; and he runs a capital jest upon them, which has become famous.

" In olde dayes of the kinge Artour, Of which that Britons speke gret honour, All was this land full filled of faerie ; The Elf-quene, with hire joly compagnie, Danced ful oft in many a grene mede. This was the old opinion as I rede ; I speke of many hundred yeres ago ; But now can no man see non elves mo, For now the grete charitee and prayeres Of limitoures and other holy freres, That serchen every land and every streme, As thikke as motes in the sonne-beme, Blissing halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures, Citees and burghes, castles highe and toures, Thropes and bemes, shepeness and dairies, This maketh that ther ben no faeries ; For ther as wont to walken was an elf, Ther walketh now the limitour himself, In undermeles and in morwenings, And sayth his matines and his holy thinge% As he goth in his limitation. Women may now go safely up and doun ; In every bush and under every tree, Ther is non other incubus but he."

In another poem, we meet with Pluto and Proserpine as the King and Queen of Faerie ; where they sing and dance about a well, enjoying themselves in a garden, and quot-

IOO FAIRIES.

ing Solomon. The "ladies " that wait upon them are the damsels that accompanied Proserpine in the vale of Enna, when she was taken away by his Majesty in his " griesly cart." This is a very different cart from a chariot made of the gristle of grasshoppers.

The national intellect, which had been maturing like an oak, from the time of Wickliffe, drawing up nutriment from every ground, and silently making the weakest things contribute to its strength, burst forth at last into flowers and fruit together, in the noonday of Shakespeare. A shower of fairy blossoms was the ornament of its might. Spenser's fairies are those of Romance, varied with the usual readings of his own fancy ; but Shakespeare, the popular poet of the world, took the little elfin globe in his hand, as he had done the great one, and made it a thing of joy and prettiness for ever. Since then the fairies have become part of a poet's belief, and happy ideas of them have almost superseded what remains of a darker creed in the minds of the people. The profound playful- ness of Shakespeare's wisdom, which humanized every thing it touched, and made it know its own value, found out the soul of an activity, convertible into good, in the restlessness of mischief; and Puck, or the elf malicious, became jester in the court of Oberon the Good Fairy, — his servant and his help. The " Elves " in the Tempest are rather the elemental spirits of the Rosicrucians, con- founded both with classical and popular mythology. It is in the "Midsummer Night's Dream" that the true fairies are found, as they ought to be ; and there amidst bowers and moonlight, will we indulge ourselves awhile with their company. We make no apology to the reader for our large quotations. They have been repeated many times and lately on the present subject; yet we should

FAIRIES. 1 01

rather have to apologize for the omission, considering how excellent they are. To add what novelty we could, or rather to make our quotations as peculiar to our work as possible, we had made up our minds to bring together all the passages in question out of Shakespeare's drama, as far as they could be separated from other matter, and present them to our readers under the title of a Fairy Play ; but we began to fear that the profane might have some color of reason for complaining of us, and accusing us of an intention to swell our pages. We have, there- fore, confined ourselves to selections which are put under distinct heads, so as to form a kind of gallery of Fairy pictures. We shall take the liberty of commenting as we go, even if our remarks are called forth on points not im- mediately belonging to the subject. It is not easy to read a great poet, and not indulge in exclamations of fondness. Besides, there is something fairy-like in having one's way.

EMPLOYMENT OF A DAMSEL OF THE FAIRY COURT.

Fairy. Over hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander every where, Swifter than the moon's sphere ; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green : The cowslips tall her pensioners be ; In their gold coats spots you see ; Those be rubies, fairy favours : In those freckles live their savours ; I must go seek some dew-drops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

Flowers, in the proper fairy spirit, which plays betwixt sport and wisdom with the profoundest mysteries of na-

IO2 FAIRIES.

ture, are here made alive, and turned into fantastic ser- vants.

In fairy-land, whatever may be, is. We may gather from this and another passage in Cymbeline, that Shake- speare was fond of cowslips, and had observed their graces with delight. It is a delicate fancy to suppose that those ruby spots contain the essence of the flower's odor, and were presents from their ruling sprite. And the hanging a pearl in every cowslip's ear (besides the beauty of the line) seems to pull the head of the tall pensioner sideways, and make him quaintly conscious of his new favor.

BOWER OF QUEEN TITANIA.

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows ; Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine, With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine ; There sleeps Titania, some time of the night, LulPd in these flowers with dances and delight

What beautiful lines are these ? Observe in the next the goggle-eyed owl, who is nightly astonished at the fairies, as if amazement were his business ; and also the childlike warning to the snails and daddy longlegs to keep aloof.

THE QUEEN IN HER BOWER.

Tita. Come, now a roundel, and a fairy song ;

Then, for the third part of a minute, hence ; Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds ; Some war with rear-mice for their leathern wings, To make my small elves coats ; and some keep back The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders At our quaint spirits : sing me now asleep ; Then to your offices, and let me rest.

\st Fairy. You spotted snakes, with double tongue, Thorny hedge-hogs, be not seen ;

FAIRIES. 103

Newts and blind-worms do no wrong ; Come not near our fairy queen.

Chorus. Philomel, with melody,

Sing in our sweet lullaby ; Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby; Never harm, nor spell nor charm, Come our lovely lady nigh, So, good night, with lullaby.

•zd Fairy. Weaving spiders, come not here ;

Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence ; Beetles black, approach not near ; Worm, nor snail, do no offence.

Chorus. Philomel, with melody, &c.

ist Fairy. Hence, away ! now all is well. One, aloof, stand sentinel.

TRICKS OF THE FAIRY KING ON HIS QUEEN.

Titania, by practice of Oberon, falls in love with a weaver, on whom Puck has clapped an ass's head. Enter Puck with him and some others. Imagine the weaver to be Listen.

Quince. O monstrous ! O strange ! we are haunted. Pray, masters ! fly, masters ! help ! [Exeunt Clowns.

Puck. I'll follow you, I'll lead you about, around, Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier ; Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound, A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire, And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn. [Exit.

Bot. Why do they run away? this is a knavery of them to make me afeard.

Re-enter SNOUT.

Snout. O Bottom, thou art changed ! What do I see on thee ?

[Exit Snout.

Bot. What do you see ? You see an ass's head of your own, do you ? Re-enter QUINCE.

Quin. Bless thee, Bottom 1 bless thee ! thou art translated. [Exit.

Bot. I see their knavery : this is to make an ass of me, to fright me if they

IO4 FAIRIES.

could. But I will not stir from this place, do what they can: I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid.

The ousel-cock, so black of hue,

With orange-tawny bill ; The throstle with his note so true,

The wren with little quill.

Tita. What angel wakes me from my flowery bed ? Bot. The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,

The plain-song cuckoo gray, Whose note full many a man doth mark,

And dares not answer nay ;

for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird? — who would give a bird the lie, though he cry cuckoo never so ?

Tita. I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again : Mine ear is much enamoured of thy note, So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape ; And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me, On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee.

Bot. Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that : and yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days : the more the pity, that some honest neighbours will not make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon the occasion.

Tita. Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.

Bot. No so, neither : but if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.

Tita. Out of this wood do not desire to go ;

Thou shalt remain here whether thou wilt or no. I am a spirit of no common rate ; The summer still doth tend upon my state, And I do love thee : therefore, go with me ; I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee ; And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep, And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep. And I will purge thy mortal grossness so, That thou shalt like an airy spirit go. Peas-blossom ! Cobweb 1 Moth 1 and Mustard-seed ! \st Fairy. Ready. zd Fairy. And I.

id Fairy. And I.

4th. Fairy. Where shall we go ?

Tita. Be kind and courteous to this gentleman ; Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes ;

FAIRIES. 105

Feed him with apricocks, and dewberries ; With purple grapes, green fie;s, and mulberries ; The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees, And, for night-tapers, crop their waxen thighs, And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes, To have my love to bed, and to arise ; And pluck the wings from painted butterflies, To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes : Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies. tst Fairy. Hail mortal ! zd Fairy. Hail!

id Fairy. Hail I

4th Fairy. Hail !

Bot. I cry your worship's mercy, heartily. I beseech your worship's name.

Cob. Cobweb.

Bot. I shall desire of you more acquaintance, good Master Cobweb : if I cut my finger I shall make bold with you. Your name, honest gentleman? Peas. Peas-blossom.

Bot. I pray you to remember me to Mistress Squash, your mother, and to Master Peascod, your father. Good Master Peas-blossom, I shall desire of you more acquaintance too. Your name, I beseech you, sir ? Mus. Mustard-seed.

Bot. Good Master Mustard-seed, I know your patience well : that same cowardly, giant-like, ox-beef hath devoured many a gentleman of your house : I promise you, your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now. I desire of you more acquaintance, good Master Mustard-seed. Tita. Come wait upon him ; lead him to my bower. The moon, methinks, looks with a wat'ry eye ; And when she weeps, weeps every little flower, Lamenting some enforced chastity. Tie up love's tongue, and bring him silently.

The luxurious reduplication of the rhyme in this exquis- ite passage, has been noticed by Mr. Hazlitt. Again, in act the fourth : —

Tita. Come, sit thee down upon this flow'ry bed,

While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,

And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,

And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy. Bot. Where's Peas-blossom? Peas. Ready.

106 FAIRIES.

Bot. Scratch my head, Peas-blossom. Where's Monsieur Cobweb? Cob. Ready.

Bot. Monsieur Cobweb ; good Monsieur, get your weapons in your hands, and kill me a red-hipp'd humble-bee on the top of a thistle ; and good Mon- sieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, Monsieur ; and, good Monsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not ; I would be loth to have you overflow with a honey-bag, Signer. Where's Monsieur Mustard-seed ? Mus. Ready.

Bot. Give me your neif, Monsieur Mustard-seed. Pray you, leave your courtesy, good Monsieur. Mus. What's your will ?

Bot. Nothing, good Monsieur, but to help Cavalero Peas-blossom to scratch. I must to the barber's, Monsieur ; for methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face : and I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch. Tita. What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love ? Bot. I have a reasonable good ear in music : let us have the tongs and the bones.

Tita. Or say, sweet love, what thou desir'st to eat.

Bot. Truly a peck of provender ; I could munch your good dry oats. Me- thinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay ; good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.

Tita. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek

The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.

Bot. I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me ; I have an exposition of sleep come upon me. Tita. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.

Fairies, begone, and be always away. [Exeunt fairtet.

So doth the wood-bine the sweet honey-suckle Gently entwist, — the female ivy so Enrings the barky ringers of the elm. O, how I love thee ! how I dote on thee I

THE FAIRIES BLESS A HOUSE AT NIGHT-TIME.

Enter PUCK. Puck. Now the hungry lion roars,

And the wolf behowls the moon ; Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,

All with weary task fordone. Now the wasted brands do glow,

Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud, Puts the wretch, that lies in woe, In remembrance of a shroud.

FAIRIES. 107

Now it is the time of night,

That the graves, all gaping wide, Every one lets forth his sprite,

In the church-way paths to glide : And we fairies that do run

By the triple Hecate's team, From the presence of the sun,

Following darkness like a dream, Now are frolick ; not a mouse Shall disturb this hallow'd house ; I am sent, with broom, before, To sweep the dust behind the door.

Enter OBERON and TITANIA with their train.

Oberon. Through this house give glimmering light,

By the dead and drowsy fire :

Every elf, and fairy sprite, Hop as light as bird from brier ;

And this ditty, after me,

Sing and dance it trippingly. Tita. First, rehearse this song by rote,

To each word a warbling note,

Hand in hand, with fairy grace,

Will we sing, and bless this place.

SONG AND DANCE.

Oberon. Now, until the break of day,

Through this house each fairy stray.

To the best bride-bed will we,

Which by us shall blessed be ;

And the issue, there create,

Ever shall be fortunate.

So shall all the couples three

Ever true in loving be :

And the blots of nature's hand

Shall not in their issue stand :

Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,

Nor mark prodigious, such as are

Despised in nativity,

Shall upon their children be.

With this field-dew consecrate,

Every fairy take his gait 1

IO8 FAIRIES.

And each several chamber bless, Through this palace with sweet peace : E'er shall it in safety rest, And the owner of it be blest.

Trip away ;

Make no stay ; Meet me all by break of day.

It is with difficulty that in these, and indeed in all our quotations, we refrain from marking particular passages. One longs to vent one's feelings, like positive grappling with the lines ; and besides, we have the temptation of the reader's company to express our admiration. But we fear to do injustice to what we should leave unmarked ; and indeed to be thought impatient with the others. Luck- ily where all is beautiful, the choice would often be difficult, if we stopped to make any ; and if we did not, we should be printing nothing but italics.

Queen Mab, as the author of the " Fairy Mythology " remarks, has certainly dethroned Titania ; but we cannot help thinking that both he, and the poets who have helped to dethrone her, are in the wrong ; and that Voss is right, when he rejects the royalty of both monosyllables. Queen or quean is old English for woman, and is still applied to females in an ill sense. Now Mab is the fairies' midwife, plebeian by office, indiscriminate in her visits, and descend- ing so low as to make elf-locks, and plait the manes of horses. We have little doubt that she is styled queen in an equivocal sense, between a mimicry of state and some- thing abusive ; and that the word Mab comes from the same housewife origin as Mop, Moppet, and Mob-Cap. The a was most likely pronounced broad ; as in Mall for Moll, Malkin for Maukin ; and Queen Mab is perhaps the quean in the Mob-cap, — the midwife riding in her chariot, but still vulgar ; and acting some such part with regard to

FAIRIES. IO9

fairies and to people's fancies, as one of Sir Walter Scott's fanciful personages (we forget her name) do.es to flesh and blood in the novel.*

The passages in Ben Jonson regarding fairies want merit enough to be quoted ; not that he had not a fine fancy, but that in this instance, as in some others, he over- laid it with his book-reading, probably in despair of equal- ling Shakespeare. The passages quoted from him by the author of the " Fairy Mythology," rather out of respect than his usual good taste, are nothing better than so many commonplaces, in which the popular notions are set forth. There is, however, one striking exception, out of the " Sad Shepherd," —

" There, in the stocks of trees, white fays do dwell, And span-long elves, that dance about a pool With each a little changeling in their arms."

This is very grim, and to the purpose. The changeling, supernaturally diminished, adds to the ghastliness, as if born and completed before its time.

For our next quotation, which is very pleasant, we are indebted, amongst our numerous obligations, to the same fairy historian. There is probably a good deal of treasure of the same sort in the rich mass of Old English Poetry ; but the truth is, we dare not trust ourselves with the search. We have already a tendency to exceed the limits assigned us ; and on subjects like these we should be tolled on from one search to another, as if Puck had taken the shape of a bee. The passage we speak of is in Ran- dolph's pastoral of " Amyntas, or the Impossible Dowry." A young rogue of the name of Dorylas " makes a fool of

* The White Lady of Avenel, in the Monastery, was undoubtedly the per sonage Hunt had in his mind. — ED.

HO FAIRIES.

a ' fantastique sheapherd,' Jocastus, by pretending to be Oberon, King of Fairy." In this character, having pro- vided a proper retinue (whom we are to suppose to be boys) he proposes a fairy husband for Jocastus's daughter, and obliges him by plundering his orchard. We take the former of these incidents for granted, from the context, for we have not seen the original. Dorylas appears some- times to act in his own character, and sometimes in that of Oberon. In the former the following dialogue takes place between him and his wittol, descriptive of

A FAIRY'S JOINTURE.

Thestylis. But what estate shall he assure upon me ? Jocastus. A royal jointure, all in Fairy land. *********

Dorylas knows it.

A curious park —

Dorylas. Paled round about with pickteeth. Joe. Besides a house made all of mother of pearl.

An ivory tennis-court. Dor. A nutmeg parlour. Joe. A sapphire dairy-room. Dor. A ginger hall. Joe. Chambers of agate. Dor. Kitchens all of crystal. Am. O, admirable ! This it is for certain. Joe. The jacks are gold. Dor, The spits are Spanish needles. Joe. Then there be walks — Dor. Of amber. Joe. Curious orchards — Dor. That bear as well in winter as in summer. Joe. 'Bove all, the fish-ponds, every pond is full — Dor. Of nectar. Will this please you ? Every grove Stored with delightful birds.

Dorylas proceeds to help himself to the farmer's apples, his brother rogues assisting him. This license, it must be owned, is royal. But what is still pleasanter, we are

FAIRIES. 1 1 1

here presented for the first time with some fairy Latin, and very good it is, quaint and pithy. The Neapolitan Robin Goodfellow, who goes about in the shape of 'a little monk, might have written it.

FAIRIES ROBBING AN ORCHARD, AND SINGING LATIN.

Dor. How like you now my grace ? Is not my countenance Royal and full of majesty ? Walk not I Like the young prince of pigmies ? Ha ! my knaves, We'll fill our pockets. Look, look yonder, elves ; Would not yon apples tempt a better conscience Than any we have, to rob an orchard ? Ha 1 Fairies, like nymphs with child, must have the things They long for. You sing here a fairy catch In that strange tongue I taught you, while ourself Do climb the trees. Thus princely Oberon Ascends his throne of state.

Elves. Nos beata Fauni proles,

Quibus non est magna moles, Quamvis lunam incolamus, Hortos saepe frequentamus.

Furto cuncta magis bella, Furto dulcior puella, Furto omnia decora, Furto poma dulciora.

Cum mortales lecto jacent, Nobis poma noctu placent ; Ilia tamen sunt ingrata, Nisi furto sint parata.

We the Fairies blithe and antic, Of dimensions not gigantic, Though the moonshine mostly keep as, Oft in orchards frisk and peep us.

Stolen sweets are always sweeter ; Stolen kisses much completer ; Stolen looks are nice in chapels ; Stolen, stolen be your apples.

112 FAIRIES.

When to bed the world are bobbing, Then's the time for orchard robbing ; Yet the fruit were scarce worth pealing, Were it not for stealing, stealing.

Jocastus's man Bromio prepares to thump these pre- tended elves, but the master is overwhelmed by the con- descension of the princely Oberon in coming to his orchard, when —

His Grace had orchards of his own more precious Than mortals can have any.

The elves therefore, by permission, pinched the officious servant, singing, —

Quoniam per te violamur, Ungues hie experiamur ; Statim dices tibi datam Cutem valde variatam.

Since by thee comes profanation, Taste thee, lo ! scarification. Noisy booby ! in a twinkling Thou hast got a pretty crinkling.

Finally, when the coast is clear, Oberon cries, —

So we are clean got off: come, noble peers Of Fairy, come, attend our royal Grace. Let's go and share our fruit with our Queen Mab And the other dairy-maids : where of this theme We will discourse amidst our capes and cream.

Cum tot poma habeamus, Triumphos loeti jam canamus : Faunos ego credam ortos, Tantum ut frequentent hortos.

I, domum, Oberon, ad illas, Quas nos manent nunc ancillas, Quarem osculemur sinum, Inter poma, lac, et vinum.

FAIRIES. 113

Now for such a stock of apples, Laud me with the voice of chapels. Fays, methinks, were gotten solely To keep orchard-robbing holy.

Hence then, hence, and let's delight us With the maids whose creams invite us, Kissing them, like proper fairies, All amidst their fruits and dairies.

III.

NEXT comes Drayton, a proper fairy poet, with an infinite luxury of little fancies. Nor was he incapable of the greater ; but he would not blot ; and so took wisely to the little and capricious. His " Nymphidia," a story of fairy intrigue, is too long and too unequal to be given entire ; but it cuts out into little pictures like a penny sheet. You might border a paper with his stanzas, and read them instead of grotesque. His fairy palace is roofed with the skins of bats, gilded with moonshine; — a fancy of ex- quisite fitness and gusto. There ought to be type by itself , — pin-points, or hieroglyphical dots, — in which to set forth the following

NAMES OF FAIRIES.

Hop, and Mop, and Drop so clear, Pip, and Trip, and Skip, that were To Mab, the sovereign lady dear.

Her special maids of honour ; Fib, and Tib, and Pinch, and Pin, Tick, and Quick, and Fill and Fin, Tit, and Wit, and Wap, and Win,

The train that wait upon her.

Oberon's queen (who is here called Mab) has made an assignation with Pigwiggen, a great fairy knight. The 8

.."4

FAIRIES.

king, furious with jealousy, pursues her, and is as mad as Orlando. He grapples with a wasp whom he mistakes for the enemy ; next plunges upon a glowworm, and thumps her for carrying fire : then runs into a hive of bees who daub him all over with their honey ; then leaps upon an ant, and gallops her ; then scours over a mole-hill, and plumps into a puddle up to his neck. The queen hears of his pursuit, and she and all her maids of honor secrete themselves in a nutshell. Pigwiggen goes out to meet the king, riding upon a fiery earwig !

A FAIRY'S ARMS AND WAR-HORSE. His helmet was a beetle's head Most horrible and full of dread, That able was to strike one dead,

Yet it did well become him. And for his plume a horse's hair, Which being tossed by the air, Had force to strike his foe with fear,

And turn his weapon from him.

Himself he on an earwig set, Yet scarce he on his back could get, So oft and high he did curvet * Ere he himself could settle ; He made him turn, and stop, and bound, To gallop and to trot the round, He scarce could stand on any ground,* He was so full of mettle.

The queen, scandalized and alarmed at the height to which matters are now openly proceeding, applies to Pros- erpina for help. The goddess takes pity on her, and during a dreadful combat between the champions, comes up with a bag full of Stygian fog and a bottle of Lethe water. The contents of the bag being suddenly dis-

* Stare loco nescit, &c. — VIRGIL.

FAIRIES. 115

charged, the knights lose one another in the mist ; and on the latter's clearing off, the goddess steps in as herald on behalf of Pluto to forbid further hostilities, adding that the ground of complaint shall be duly investigated, but first recommending to the parties to take a draught of the liquor she has brought with her, in order to enlighten their understandings. They drink and forget every thing ; and the queen and her maids of honor, " closely smiling " at the jest, return with them to court, and have a grand dinner. Now this is " worshipful society," and a good plot. The " machines" as the French school used to call them, are in good keeping ; and the divine interference worthy.

In the " Muses' Elysium " of the same poet is a descrip- tion of a fairy wedding. The bride wears buskins made of the shells of the lady-bird, with a head-dress of rose- yellows and peacock-moons, &c. ; but her bed is a thing to make one wish one's self only a span long, in order to lay one's cheek in it. The coverlid is of white and red rose-leaves ; the curtains and tester of the flower-imperial, with a border of harebells ; and the pillows are of lily, stuffed with butterfly-down.*

* From " The Recreations of Christopher North," we take this beautiful and very poetical description of a Fairy's Funeral : —

There it was, on a little river island, that once, whether sleeping or waking we know not, we saw celebrated a fairy's funeral. First we heard small pipes playing, as if no bigger than hollow rushes that whisper to the night winds ; and more piteous than aught that trills from earthly instrument was the scarce audible dirge ! It seemed to float over the stream, every foam-bell emitting a plaintive note, till the airy anthem came floating over our couch, and then alighted without footsteps among the heather. The pattering of little feet was then heard, as if living creatures were arranging themselves in order, and then there was nothing but a more ordered hymn. The harmony was like the melting of musical dew-drops, and song, without words, of sorrow and death. We opened our eyes, or rather sight came to them when closed, and dream was vision : Hundreds of creatures, no taller than the crest of the lap-

Il6 FAIRIES.

We think, with the author of the " Mythology," that Her- rick's fairy poetry is inferior to that of Drayton. Herrick is indeed very inferior to the reputation which a few happy little poems have obtained for him ; and the late reprint of his works has done him no good. For one delicacy there are twenty pages of coarseness and insipidity. His epigrams, for the most part, are ludicrous only for the total absence of wit ; and inasmuch as he wanted senti- ment, he was incapable of his own voluptuousness. His passion is cold, and his decencies impertinent. In his offerings at pagan altars, the Greek's simplicity becomes a literal nothing ; though there is an innocence in the ped- antry that is by no means the worst thing about him. His verses on his maid Prue are edifying. Herrick was a jovial country priest, a scholar, and a friend of Ben Jon- son's, and we dare say had been a capital university-man. Scholarship and a certain quickness were his real in- spirers, and he had a good sense, which in one instance has exhibited itself very remarkably ; for it led him to speak of his being " too coarse to love." To be sure, he

wing, and all hanging down their veiled heads, stood in a circle on a green plat among the rocks ; and in the midst was a bier, framed as it seemed of flowers unknown to the Highland hills ; and on the bier a fairy, lying with uncovered face, pale as the lily, and motionless as the snow. The dirge grew fainter and fainter, and then died quite away ; when two of the creatures came from the circle, and took their station, one at the head and the other at the foot of the bier. They sang alternate measures, not louder than the twittering of the awakened wood-lark before it goes up the dewy air, but dolorous and full of the desolation of death. The flower-bier stirred ; for the spot on which it lay sank slowly down, and in a few moments the greensward was smooth as ever — the very dews glittering about the buried fairy. A cloud passed over the moon ; and, with a choral lament, the funeral troop sailed duskily away, heard afar off, so still was the midnight solitude of the glen. Then the disenthralled Orchy began to rejoice as before through all her streams and falls ; and at the sudden leaping of the waters and outbursting of the moon, we awoke. — ED.

FAIRIES. 117

has put the observation in the mouth of a lady, and prob- ably he found it there. He well deserved it for the foolish things he has said. He made a good hit now and then, when fresh from reading his favorite authors ; and among them, we must rank a fairy poem mentioned by the author of the " Legends of the South of Ireland." His office helped to inspire him in it, for it is a satire, and a bitter one, on the ceremonies of Catholic worship. We must own we have a regard for a Catholic chapel ; but it is not to be denied that some of the duties performed in it are strange things, and open to quaint parodies. The names of the saints in Herrick are worthy of Drayton.

There is one thing in the fairies of Drayton which de- serves mention. He does not shirk the miscellaneous, and, in some respects, anti-human nature of their tastes. The delicacies at their table are not always such as we should think pleasant, or even bearable. This is good ; perhaps more so than he was aware, for he overdoes it.

Milton's "pert fairies and dapper-elves" are a little too sophistical. They are too much like fairies acting them- selves ; which is overdoing the quaint nicety of their con- sciousness. But in addition to the well-known passages we have quoted from him already, there is a very fine one in his First Book. He is speaking of the transformation of the devils into a crowd in miniature.

As bees

In spring-time, when the sun with Taurus rides, Pour forth their populous youth about the hive In clusters : they among fresh dews and flowers Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank, The suburb of their straw-built citadel, New rubb'd with balm, expatiate and confer Their state affairs. So thick the aery crowd Swarm'dand were straiten'd ; till the signal given, Behold a wonder ! They but novr who seem'd

Il8 FAIRIES.

In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons,

Now less than smallest dwarfs in narrow room

Throng numberless, like that Pygmean race,

Beyond the Indian mount ; or faery elves,

Whose midnight revels, by a forest side,

Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,

Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon

Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth

Wheels her pale course ; they, on their mirth and dance

Intent, with jocund music charm his ear ;

At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.

There is a pretty fairy tale in Parnell, where a young man, by dint of moral beauty, loses his hump. Perhaps it was this poem that suggested a large prose piece to the same effect, written, we believe, by a descendant of the poet's family, and well worthy the perusal of all who are not acquainted with it. It is entitled " Julietta, or the Triumph of Mental Acquirements over Bodily Defects ; " and is found in most circulating libraries. But the most beautiful of all stories on the subject, and indeed one of the most beautiful stories in the world, is the celebrated fairy tale of " Beauty and the Beast." Of this, however, we may speak another time ; for the fairies of the French books (however minute may be their dealings occasionally) are not the little elves of the North, but the Fates or en- chantresses of Romance, paying visits to the nursery.

We shall conclude with a few goblin anecdotes, illus- trative of the present state of fairy belief in its true northern region, that is to say, in the British and other islands, Scandinavia, and Germany ; and, as the creed is, in fact, the same throughout the whole of that part of the world, though modified by the customs of the different people, we shall not stop to make literal or national dis- tinctions, when the spirit of the thing is the same. Our authorities are the " Fairy Mythology," and the " Fairy

FAIRIES. Up

Legends of the South of Ireland ; " but it is proper to state, as the authors of these works make a point of doing, that the great masters of Fairy lore now living are Messrs. Grimm, the German writers, with whose language (the language of Goethe) we are, to our regret, unacquainted. But we are zealous students at second hand.

A man who had a Nis, or goblin, in his house, could think of no other way of getting rid of him than by moving. He accordingly packed up his goods, and was preparing to set off with the cart, when the Nis put up his head from it, and cried out — "Eh! Well, we're moving to-day, you see."

A German, for a similar reason, set fire to his barn, hoping to burn the goblin with it.

Turning round to look at the blaze, as he was driving away, the goblin said, "It was time to move, wasn't it ? "

There was a Nis that was plagued by a mischievous boy. He went one night to the boy, as he was sleeping in bed by the side of a tall man, and kept pulling him